Trocaire is an Irish NGO that works in partnership with a range of organizations and communities in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Sudan to bring about change at the individual, community, societal and institutional level to tackle the root causes of poverty and injustice, not just the symptoms.

Trocaire places partnerships with local communities at the center of it's work and believes that strong partnerships with individuals and local organizations are the most effective way to bring about change and empowerment. For this reason, Trocaire works to bring about change at four different levels:

• Empowering women and men to secure their basic rights on an individual level through capacity building activities and psycho-social support.

• Mobilizing communities and engaging leaders to build sustainable and resilient communities through awareness raising campaigns that seek to change attitudes around different development challenges.
• Strengthening civil society to challenge injustice and tackle poverty.
• Influencing those in power to create a fairer and more sustainable world through legal reforms that benefit the community.

While Trocaire works across multiple development sectors globally, in the MENA region, their efforts are primarily focused on empowering people to claim their human rights, empower women, and responding to humanitarian crisis.

Human Rights and Injustice

Trocaire works to empower communities to challenge unjust power structures and fight for human rights, justice and equality. 

Trocaire’s approach involves supporting local organizations and enabling them to address the structural issues that undermine rights and accountability. Their activities ranged from awareness raising and capacity building training, to litigation, advocacy, legal and psychosocial support and physical accompaniment to protect their human rights.

Most of these activities are concentrated in Palestine where Trocaire has:

• undertaken 118 legal challenges against forced displacement
• provided legal services to 764 women survivors of violence in Gaza
• provided mental health services to 439 women and 294 men and boys
• provided legal representation and psychosocial support to 3,484 Palestinian women and men

Women's Empowerment

Trocaire’s empowerment programs work at individual, local, and societal levels.

• With individual women: Trocaire builds confidence through rights training, literacy educacy, and the establishment of women's savings groups.

• Within households: Trocaire supports shared decision making within the household and shared control of household wealth.

• Within communities: Trocaire builds positive attitudes for gender equality and challenge negative attitudes. One of Trocaire's initiatives is to use women-only spaces for sharing and learning, which allow for support in a safe and supportive environment. 

• Wider society and institutions: Trocaire addresses power imbalances by attempting to influence laws and policies. Trocaire seeks to support women's return to education by making them more financially independent or providing childcare solutions. 

Humanitarian Action

Trocaire works in partnership with local organizations to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in a crisis. Trocaire provides local partners with expertise and staff, which allows for quick and effective response to emergencies.

Trocaire's total expenditure, 2019-2020 stands at €67m, of which they have allocated €58m for overseas programming, only €6m  were allocated for fundraising, with the remaining amount intended for public engagement including building Irish citizens engagement with development activities. 

In 2019/2020, Trocaire managed to raise €64m of which €41m (64%) came from institutional funders and grants. Of the institutional funding €30m came from governmental organizations, with Irish Aid providing the bulk with a €22m contribution followed by the EU and SIDA. Notably, €5m were also provided by the Cairtas network.

Trocaire prides itself on working with local organizations to implement its development projects. Some of its partners in the MENA region include:

SAWA for Development and Aid 

Basmeh & Zeitooneh - A Lebanese Association

Sudan Relief Fund

NUBA Relief Rehabilitation and Development Organization - Sudan