Türkiye
- Gaziantep, TürkiyeHeadquartersRegistered headquarters office
- Hatay, TürkiyeField operations
Our vision and our message
Olive Branch is a humanitarian non-profit organisation working with communities in Syria and Türkiye. This page sets out what we are working towards, what we say about it, and what makes our way of working different.
Read our strategy
What we stand for
- Vision
- A peaceful, inclusive and just society where empowered individuals and communities live with dignity, opportunity and active civic participation, and are able to recover, thrive and build sustainable peace.
- Message
- Olive Branch works to foster peacebuilding, social cohesion and community development by strengthening education, empowering youth, expanding economic opportunities, promoting rights-based advocacy, and reinforcing civil society, with inclusive engagement across refugee, host and local communities.
What makes us different
Five things run through everything we do, from a learning centre in Idlib to a policy campaign in Brussels.
How we got established
The story of Olive Branch began in 2012 in Daraa, southern Syria, when a group of young people who believed in the importance of civil and humanitarian action met, looking for a way to support their communities in the difficult conditions the conflict had created.
How we work
We work through integrated, community-based interventions rather than single projects. Every programme is planned with conflict sensitivity and the Do No Harm approach in view.
Localism
Our six locations are run from within the communities they serve, by local staff and local partners who hold the relationships, the language and the knowledge.
Continuity
We design programmes to outlast their funding. Learning centres, vocational training and local civil society organisations stay open because the institutions behind them were strengthened.
Building power
The goal is not dependence on us. We invest in the capacity of local organisations so they can hold their ground in policy, and lead their own recovery and peacebuilding.
One organisation on both sides of the border
Olive Branch is a single organisation with two headquarters offices, one in Türkiye and one in Syria. They share one strategy, one set of values and one set of programmes, so support given in one country follows the same families into the other.
Syria
- Damascus, SyriaHeadquartersHeadquarters office
- Daraa, SyriaField operations
- Idlib, SyriaField operations
- Aleppo, SyriaField operations
Gaziantep, Türkiye
Registered headquarters office
Our registered home and the base for fundraising, partnerships, finance and the technical teams that support the whole organisation.
Damascus, Syria
Headquarters office
Our base inside Syria, where the programmes with the longest horizon live: learning centres, child and women and youth centres, and the work that keeps communities in recovery.
The structure
The organisation is built around six strategic objectives and eight values. Everything we do is decided against them.
Meet the teamOur eight values
- 01Innovation and creative solutions
- 02Peaceful coexistence, non-violence and conflict sensitivity
- 03Inclusion and social justice
- 04Community empowerment and local ownership
- 05Human dignity and rights
- 06Integrity, transparency and accountability
- 07Solidarity and collaborative action
- 08Learning, adaptability and evidence-based practice
Our six working areas
- Community recovery and peacebuilding
- Education for recovery and stability
- Youth empowerment
- Economic empowerment
- Advocacy and civil society
- Refugees and returnees
Work with us
We partner with organisations that want to strengthen communities in Syria and Türkiye, and we work with volunteers across our programmes.