Forgotten Relief in Humanitarian Response Activities in Yemen

By: Nabil Ahmed Alkhadher - Yemeni Writer

Yemen, according to the international statistics and UN maps, is a country with a population of approximately 32 million people and an area of more than half a million square kilometers. Yemen is also considered one of the poorest countries in the world despite its natural resources and the culture that is atypical and different from all the cultures of the region, especially in the historical and mythological aspect and at the level of customs and traditions which are considered a significant cultural wealth that can be invested to become its most important economic resource.[1]

Before the war in Yemen, the National Dialogue Conference's participants worked to create a stage of the new legislative structure that matched the characteristics of the 2011 revolution stage in order to formulate a set of national policies and recommendations in general as well as in the cultural and creative fields. It also includes articles on theater, media, intellectual creativity, intellectual property rights, children's libraries, artistic production, interest in oral and written heritage, antiquities, museum development, cultural tourism, and creative industries, particularly within the final document of the National Dialogue Conference and at the level of the draft constitution.

In terms of culture and cultural policies, Yemen was not paying attention to heritage, cultural products, or cultural funding, which in recent years has reached its lowest level in Yemen and across the world.

With the outbreak of the Yemeni conflict, cultural courses, arts, and literature became almost neglected tools in community, institutional, and governmental work. Moreover, cultural houses in Yemen, such as the Al-Afif Foundation, the Al-Nu'man Foundation, and the Cultural Foundation affiliated with the Hayel Saeed Anam family group, which either decreased their activity, stopped, or were destroyed due to the bombing.

After more than eight years of war, it appears that UN agencies and international and local organizations have worked on many humanitarian sectors in the Republic of Yemen and have forgotten an important intervention that is considered one of the priorities of the humanitarian response in any country experiencing a conflict similar to what is happening in Yemen, which is cultural relief that is considered as one of the forgotten types of humanitarian relief.

Local and international organizations are primarily interested in the following types of humanitarian response:

• Food Security and Agriculture: It is regarded as one of the most significant operations undertaken by UN agencies, international organizations, and local non-governmental organizations in any country experiencing wars, conflicts, or humanitarian or natural catastrophes. These organizations focus on the specifics of food security and agricultural operations, such as appropriate food distribution techniques, vouchers or direct cash payments to the impacted families, displaced individuals, refugees, and host communities.
• Proper Nutrition: It is a vital activity in humanitarian work, especially while the outbreak of diseases, famines, and malnutrition after natural catastrophes and wars. Thus, these institutions work to alleviate malnutrition and promote good methods for providing nutrition programs for children, as well as methods for providing nutritional supplements and treating malnourished children. Also, monitoring the development of healthy nutrition for affected communities.
• Health: It is the third major intervention in human activity and is associated with many health practices, the most important of which are methods of purchasing, preparing, and providing medicines and medical supplies to those affected by natural disasters or war, as well as work to build capacities in the field of providing health care to groups at risk of malnutrition or the spread of epidemics. In addition, training on health emergencies in affected communities.
• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: This basic humanitarian path works to ensure that communities affected by natural disasters or wars have access to safe drinking water and secure sanitation services. It also works on providing fuel and sterilization materials, repairing, providing, operating, and activating water supply and sanitation systems, and activating emergency bathrooms for communities, as well as implementing emergency and frequent hygiene campaigns.
• Education: It is one of the most vital humanitarian interventions carried out by international humanitarian institutions in any community affected by a natural disaster or internal wars. This involves a variety of practices and activities that improve the status of education in affected communities. Particularly, in the techniques of delivering supplies, books, hygiene items, furniture, and school supplies, as well as activating child-friendly facilities that provide educational, recreational, and health services to children and provide aid for educational services.
• Shelter and site management: This is a humanitarian activity that thrives in communities affected by wars and natural disasters, especially when internally displaced people and refugees are present from one country to another, so that these organizations work on distributing household and emergency shelter kits, granting winter supplies, and identifying gaps in the delivery of services to displaced or refugee communities. Moreover, finding best ways to provide them with subsidies and cash grants, build and rehabilitate their shelter in a way that ensures their safety, privacy, and human dignity.
• Protection: Some humanitarian groups require protection as part of the humanitarian interventions carried out by organizations in any affected community. Those groups include children, women, the elderly, the disabled, the displaced, refugees, and extremely vulnerable people. At the top of those practices: protecting children from violence and abuse, negligence, physical and sexual exploitation, participation of children in armed conflicts. As for women, protection of women from gender-based violence, and a variety of other practices. All the aforementioned will improve the protection of the most vulnerable members of the affected community and these are all examples of practices that can help.

There are some indirect interventions carried out by local, international, and United Nations organizations that are not directly related to humanitarian work, but contribute to the success of the humanitarian response. The activities of rapid response mechanisms, logistics, supply, and communication and coordination services are among these interventions.

The aforementioned humanitarian interventions are all that local and international organizations are working on in Yemen, with no regard for cultural relief as a crucial form of humanitarian response in any country that has gone through a conflict similar to the one Yemen is currently experiencing. Cultural relief has received little attention, with the exception of a few minor UNESCO interventions and some artistic and cultural interventions in child-friendly centers.

Cultural relief is often overlooked and forgotten despite its association with many human rights that should not be ignored even in societies experiencing wars or conflicts, such as the right to entertainment, the right to freedom of expression, and cultural rights in general.

Cultural relief can be an important support for the rest of the humanitarian response tools in Yemen by combining humanitarian work with cultural relief work by activating the principle of cultural relief and its details, and creating an integrated cultural circle that aims to monitor violations of culture such as protecting antiquities.

In addition to borrowing some relief vocabulary and combining it with culture, such as “nutrition and culture,” “education and culture,” “health and culture,” “child protection, gender-based violence and culture,” in addition to “agricultural security, agriculture and culture,” and the oral and material heritage of local communities.

In addition to modifying some subtle relief details and integrating them into culture. For instance there is a type of interventions called: Cash for Work which is executed by United Nations agencies and international organizations that can generate  a form of cultural relief work for intellectuals, such as providing them with cash assistance in exchange for articles, stories, poetry, fine arts, and photographs that they create, which makes intellectuals able to live in an acceptable manner in the light of deterioration of the human right to a good life for intellectuals and creators.

The cultural relief program can have a positive role in activating children's rights, such as the right to education through cultural, artistic and creative programs offered to them in schools or in care and shelter institutions or in child-friendly centers.

Cultural relief programs can play an important role in realizing some of women's rights in conflict-affected societies, and there are marvelous ideas that have been implemented in societies that are going through what Yemen is currently going through. These programs could include training women in traditional heritage industries so that their products can provide assistance to these women and their families by providing a sustainable income during the conflict phase that their societies are experiencing.

It is very possible to make a link between human rights and cultural relief by adopting the human rights concept in culture, arts, and literature. Also, by realizing the concept that respect for cultural rights is a prerequisite for preserving human dignity. Moreover, by clarifying the status of cultural rights in the human rights system, and considering "cultural rights" as a decisive factor in humanitarian response. In addition, consistency of sustainable development based on the indivisibility of human rights, including the protection of cultural diversity and the study of cultural rights and neighboring rights, as well as their applications for the benefit of Yemeni people beneficiaries of humanitarian response.

Cultural relief is closely related to important human rights concepts such as identity, heritage, respect for the diversity of modes of expression, thinking, religion, opinion, and expression. Furthermore, encouraging participation in cultural life as an entry point to participating in activating human rights and following a lifestyle among the Yemeni public that highlights the value of its cultural asset and the role of this asset in obtaining protection from war daggers.

Cultural Relief promotes public participation in cultural activities through its programs by assisting the public in expressing their local culture and cultural heritage, as well as the role of this heritage in promoting human and cultural rights. In addition to the positive role of cultural relief in the process of political and social change by stimulating community participation in cultural life and receiving cultural services. It can also help promoting freedom of artistic creativity and raise it at the collective level. Similarly, developing capabilities, materials and standards for monitoring and control to implement the protection of the material and moral rights of owners of artistic and cultural outputs.

On the other hand, cultural relief programs, if they are activated within the humanitarian response paths of local and international organizations and United Nations agencies, can work on researching, limiting, and minimizing violations that may occur to intellectuals and creators such as arrest, imprisonment, or threats, and it can contribute in protecting cultural and archaeological sites or cultural heritage. Besides that, protecting intellectual and cultural identity from bombing, theft or trafficking.

All tracks within Yemen's humanitarian response do not include what cultural relief programs could include in terms of activities and measures that work to preserve science and culture during Yemen's current conflict. They have a positive impact on Yemen's and Yemenis' post-conflict situation as Yemen enters the stage of peace.

Considering cultural relief in the future as an integral part of the humanitarian response will greatly motivate affected communities to participate in the cultural humanitarian response. It will also encourage those communities to use cultural services, raise the bar for artistic freedom, and develop capabilities, resources, and standards for monitoring and following up on violations of culture, rights, heritage, and cultural identity. This will also help track violations in the field of cultural rights and advocate for issues facing these violations, such as the right to education, knowledge, access to information, the right to expression, and freedom of thought and belief. and other cultural relief details.

It is possible for local and international institutions and United Nations agencies to work on many programs, such as monitoring violations in the field of culture and arts in Yemen, especially during the current war phase, if cultural relief is developed as part of the humanitarian response programs in Yemen. For instance, a cultural rights and diversity observatory could be established to serve interested individuals, the public, decision-makers, the media, and intellectuals. It can also be used to train workers in the fields of culture and/or human rights, as well as their variations and applications. It can also help raising awareness of the significance of tangible and intangible heritage in the lives of people and individuals, as well as the extent to which this heritage influences diversity.

This observatory, which is a small part of the details of cultural relief, can work on the development of individuals and societies and safeguard their rights and culture through appeals, numbers, and news about cultural violations of individuals, institutions, heritage, or antiquities, which will be collected through the Observatory of Cultural Rights and Cultural Diversity.

It is likely that cultural relief programs will use awareness campaigns to promote neglected cultural rights on Yemeni streets, incorporate them into public discourse, and increase public trust in them, in a way that supports the protection, and application of these cultural rights. As well as activating advocacy programs for the cultural rights of individuals, local communities, or Yemeni society as a whole, whether these rights are individual, such as the right to expression, or social rights, such as the right to preserve heritage and cultural diversity from destruction.

In addition to the foregoing, cultural relief programs in Yemen may create clusters of programs that can work on determining priorities for work on cultural policies, identifying the needs of the governmental, non-governmental, commercial, and individual cultural sectors, and meeting those needs for the benefit of the Yemeni people. Among these priorities are projects for protecting creators in Yemen during war and conflict, designing cultural relief programs, and advocating for people arrested for exercising their right to think.

Many humanitarian groups can benefit from cultural relief if they take part in the humanitarian response paths of local, international, and United Nations organizations in Yemen. The rest of the humanitarian response paths that have been targeting other groups of beneficiaries in recent years have forgotten about some important humanitarian groups that require humanitarian assistance in Yemen's current situation. Intellectuals, writers, creators, fine artists, photographers, singers, theater actors, and cultural activists are examples of such groups. And also taking care of children through the component of culture and psychological and social support for children in light of conflicts, children’s rights and culture. In addition, empowering women in conflict and gender-based violence. Along with combining cultural work with efforts to end violence against women, this initiative is interested in governmental and non-governmental cultural institutions and businesses that work in the arts and will support their efforts to resume operations after the majority of them were shut down or stopped during the war. The ultimate beneficiary and target of the Cultural Relief Project in Yemen is the Yemeni people.

If properly and effectively implemented, the inclusion of the cultural relief track within the humanitarian response tracks in Yemen will not only lessen the negative effects of war and conflict on Yemenis but will also have a positive impact on them.

Decreasing the terrible decline in the cultural or human rights movement and create a real cultural, humanitarian, and human rights vision of what the nation may experience in the future are some of the positive tracks that can be achieved in this area. Also ensuring the creation of an independent and dynamic cultural movement and the establishment of a phase in which the promotion of culture, arts, and literature is respected and the human rights and freedoms of independent thinkers and creators, intellectuals, producers, innovators, and the public in general are respected in Yemen.

Also protecting the successes made as a result of the National Dialogue Conference document and the Yemeni constitution, as well as monitoring violations in the activities of culture, arts, and literature.

In the presence of effective cultural and artistic institutions and companies with strategies, systems, policies, and projects related to cultural and humanitarian work in Yemen, the role of the cultural relief track will be important in increasing society's belief in the importance of cultural relief in the midst of conflict and post-conflict. In addition to paying attention to it through funding and partnerships in cultural, artistic, and creative projects and activities that provide information, experiences, and ideas about Yemen's cultural relief response, and increasing knowledge of its specifics, creating demand and supply for cultural services within Yemen's humanitarian work.

The following challenges and obstacles may prevent the cultural relief tracks in Yemen from moving forward, but with the right activation, they will be overcome, just as other humanitarian courses have done. These challenges and obstacles include but are not limited to the following:

• Political impediments and ambiguity in decision-making in Yemen's various cities, each of which belongs to a different authority than the other and is generally hostile to each other. As a result, the humanitarian response in general, and cultural relief in particular, is an activity that cannot be adequately predicted or managed.
• The security issue stems from the war between Yemen and the Arab coalition, as well as an increase in the number of groups controlling the state that are not very connected to it and do not believe in the mechanisms and methods of states in managing societies during conflicts, wars, or even periods of peace.
• The societal cultural challenge and the extent to which society has changed in its dealings with culture in Yemen, and the societal perception of culture has changed in the past period. For instance, the society's view has changed from a societal culture that used to go to cinema and theatre, and promote a culture of singing, publishing and dancing, to a culture that serves religious and political fundamentalisms, which caused the gradual disappearance of a diverse, tolerant, rich culture capable of participating in development.
• Challenges with funding, as all local and international organizations, as well as United Nations agencies, tend to follow the traditional humanitarian response paths, failing to recognize the importance of cultural relief in humanitarian response activities in Yemen.
• The most significant challenge is the institutional challenge, in which non-governmental cultural and creative institutions have been fought by fundamentalist groups on the one hand, and suffer from a lack of funding and a lack of faith in the importance of cultural relief on the other, prompting many of them to freeze or close their activities or leave Yemen and continue their activities on an international level.
• The government's challenge and obstacles to granting work licenses to local and international institutions and United Nations agencies, which were limited to granting licenses for food security, health, shelter, and other major humanitarian interventions, and refusing to grant work licenses to projects that address media, human rights, and cultural needs.
• At the concept level, there are obstacles and challenges. Many ideas have shifted as a result of the war. For example, from the beautiful cinema to the cinema as a tramp center, and from the Internet that serves educational purposes to the Internet that is only accessed by those looking for porn, and from singing practiced by the community's elite to singing that some believe is only practiced by people from a lower social class. 

The Yemeni society's vision of many cultural concepts has shifted to negative connotations. For example, new cultures have promoted that their cultural perspective is correct, dominant, and acceptable.

Many countries around the world have faced conflicts in their societies and worked to activate all aspects of major humanitarian relief, but they have not forgotten or ignored cultural relief as an important part of humanitarian response activities.

There are many examples that can be cited in this field, such as learning from the history of the conflict, such as what happened in Rwanda through a center that preserves the multimedia heritage that contains an archive that includes many testimonies about the genocide that occurred in 1994 in Rwanda.  Materials are available in a constructive form for young generations.[2]

There are currently other examples, most notably in Ukraine. Cultural and creative interventions are included in cultural relief programs such as Cultural Aid, which aims to serve as a point of contact for Ukrainian cultural workers and artists. This cultural aid assisted in the empowerment of artists and cultural workers, as well as the expansion of their networks with cultural institutions and the successful implementation of art projects. Furthermore, cultural support has been provided to Ukrainian refugees in asylum countries so that they can resume their creative careers and record their impressions and experiences about the war in their country of origin in an artistic and creative manner.[3]

In contrast to Yemen, this relief intervention is more visible in Ukraine, where an emergency fund for the arts has been established. It focuses on cultural, artistic, and creative relief. It specializes in supporting artists, workers and independent intellectuals in Ukraine. This emergency fund aims to help artists and intellectuals to live in safety and continue their cultural and creative work, and to contribute to addressing the threats of the war in Ukraine to the cultural, creative and artistic community, and this intervention unfortunately did not happen in the Yemeni crisis.[4]

In fact, there are dozens of examples of cultural relief details that can be told about conflicts that occurred in many African, Arab, and Asian countries. Finding, utilizing, and learning from them requires research and investigation, as well as matching the appropriate ones to the Yemeni situation.

[1] https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%86

[2] https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/foe/inh/hlf/22556262/22774081.html

[3] https://www.ifa.de/en/ukraine-projects/

[4] https://ueaf.moca.org.ua/