From Grassroots to an Institution
By 2015, it became clear that informal efforts were not enough to match the scale and complexity of the crisis. That year, we officially became Child Guardians, registering in Turkey, and later in the UK and the USA, while keeping our roots, our staff, and our focus firmly inside Syria.
This transition allowed us to build stronger systems of governance, scale our services, and partner with the global humanitarian community. What started as a grassroots effort evolved into a trusted organisation, capable of delivering life-saving services in some of Syria’s most vulnerable and hard-to-reach areas.
A Mission Beyond Relief
Child Guardians never aimed to simply deliver aid. From the beginning, the work was about changing the conditions that put children at risk. Over the years, the organisation expanded its work across multiple areas of intervention:
Education
Formal, non-formal, and accelerated learning for children affected by war, poverty, or disability
Case Management
Identifying and supporting children facing abuse, exploitation, or neglect.
Community Engagement
Launching child protection committees, youth peacebuilding groups, and parent–teacher associations that continue to lead change from within.
Emergency Response
Delivering rapid protection support and professional interventions during and after crisis, displacement and disaster.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
Healing trauma and rebuilding resilience through specialist care.
Raising Syria’s Voice on the Global Stage
As our work deepened, we also began to share what we were learning. Child Guardians took on leadership roles in global protection spaces, like the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, helping shape the very standards that guide child protection in conflict settings around the world.
Our field-tested expertise in case management, safeguarding, and community-based protection is now not only saving lives inside Syria, but also influencing policy and improving practice across humanitarian crises globally.
Today, we operate with over 1,100 field staff across Syria, supported by 836 active volunteers and a growing team of technical specialists and thought leaders. We’ve provided direct protection services to more than 1.45 million children, and supported over 580,000 with access to education and mental health support. Hundreds of schools and communities now have the tools to safeguard their own children, and many of those tools came from our early work.
Still, our mission is far from over.
Every campaign, every training, every safe space we open carries the same belief that brought us here:
even in war, even in displacement, every child deserves to be safe, well, and educated.
And until that vision becomes reality,
Today, and Tomorrow
PROTECT SYRIA'S CHILDREN TODAY
Every donation helps us reach more children with life-saving protection services, education, and care. Join us in building a safer world for Syria's most vulnerable.
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