Empowering Syrian civil society

Baytna Inline is a strategic program designed to address the challenges facing civil society inside Syria. It offers Syrian organizations, initiatives and groups the needed support, resources, tools, and skills they need to act as forces for peace, stability and democratic change in Syria.

The program adopts a broad definition of civil society, as a community of citizens linked by common interests and working actively and collectively to achieve their aims, based on the respect for fundamental rights and the principle of equality. Civil society is the cornerstone for any democratic and pluralistic future of Syria, and it promotes and fosters the environment in which future leaders can emerge. Civil society actors can range from a group of a few people supporting a certain initiative locally to an organized non-governmental institution with thousands as its constituency and projects in the millions of dollars. 

Civil society interests are equally wide: from basic freedoms of assembly, association, expression, etc., passing by arts and culture and media to individual public policy areas such as education, health, local government, transportation, environment, etc. Work modes among civil society are equally diverse, often progressing from charitable beginnings to more complex developmental approaches and developing further to rights-based activities, advocacy and policy dialogue.