First Person: Syrians lead efforts to clear rubble and rebuild lives

Communities in Syria are clearing rubble and rebuilding neighbourhoods and livelihoods torn down in the more than a decade of conflict and crisis in the country.The conflict there killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions, and caused severe damage to infrastructure across the country estimated at over $100 billion. Joelle-Seme Park works for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and recently travelled to Syria to visit recovery projects.“Standing in the middle of a neighbourhood in Rural Damascus, it was hard to imagine what daily life here once looked like. Piles of broken concrete and twisted metal block almost everything. Roads remain closed. Water and sewage networks cannot be repaired. Power and essential services struggle to return. Entire communities stay disconnected.© UNDP SyriaJoelle-Seme Park, a crisis readiness specialist with UNDP, meets a boy in Syria. Streets are blocked by rubble. Buildings have collapsed. Shops are shuttered. Even moving from one street to another is difficult.One thing became clear to me; until rubble is removed, life cannot fully restart.Communities are driving efforts to clear rubble, yet they cannot do it alone. Clearing debris r...