The Syria Trust for Development is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation, established in Syria in 2007.  Its aim is to empower people from all walks of life to play a full role in building and shaping their society.  Syria’s future depends on its people, and the Syria Trust seeks to encourage individuals and communities to be positive agents of change.

The Syria Trust carries out its work in partnership with local communities, other NGOs and charities, government and the private sector.  Our work is delivered through projects and programmes of activity, which we organise under three areas of focus – learning; rural development; and culture and heritage. In these areas our work builds capacity, changes attitudes, and creates opportunities.

In support of its project work the Trust also comprises seven service groups - Finance , Human Resources & Administration  , Research , Strategy Management and Planning & Corporate Communications - which together ensure that the planning and business of the Trust is carried out to the best international standards, and with proper accountability.  The governance of the Syria Trust for Development is through a Board of Trustees chaired by Her Excellency Mrs Asma Al Assad.  

Our Vision
A future where people in Syria can realise their potential for the benefit of themselves, their families and their country

Our Mission
To ‘inspire’, ‘empower’ ,‘Engage’and ,‘Ashieve’  individuals and communities throughout Syria, by initiating and managing programmes in partnership with people to develop capabilities, attitudes and opportunities that enable them to realise their potential, take charge of their lives and benefit society.

Our Core Values 

A final a set of core values was identified by the team, based on alignment with the Mission and Vision and in support to the desired corporate culture as follows:   

Inspire:  We inspire people by nurturing belief in their potential and encouraging them to think creatively about the present and their future.

Empower: We enable people by working with them to develop the attitude, capacity, and skills to learn, grow and grasp opportunities.

Engage:  We actively engage with our people, partners and beneficiaries in order to foster ownership and ensure our work to respond to their specific needs

Achieve: We achieve results and celebrate successes with an emphasis on on-going dedication, clear focus and sustainability. We embrace challenges and promote learning in all that we do.

Consequently, to each of us as individuals, working at the Syria Trust for Development …

“….first and foremost makes me proud.  Proud of being part of Syria’s growth.  Proud of being part of changing the way the Syrian people see the world and the opportunities it offers locally, regionally and globally and proud of being part of a dynamic, creative and responsive team that really makes a difference.

The environment at the Trust as you would expect embraces diversity, encourages and supports individual development and provides us with opportunities to challenge the status quo, make mistakes from which we learn and grow, and enables us to respond quickly to what our beneficiaries need.

Our reward structure is fair and equitable. As you would expect it is not the highest in the market- we are conscious that we are spending other people’s money – but it is on a par with the market in which we compete for talented people.  There is opportunity for career growth and the great thing is we as individuals are afforded opportunities way above what the private commercial sector could offer us; the opportunity to make a difference whilst utilising our talents to the full.

We do of course have processes and policies and we understand that without them the Trust would struggle to maintain necessary controls. However, within each of our projects our Managers are given sufficient flexibility to interpret those policies to enable us to be effective.

Naturally, the Trust has a number of projects working throughout Syria, we all know and understand what each of them are doing so that we can share experiences, successes and challenges and of course learn from our mistakes. Our Leadership team regularly meets with us to share information and to seek our views. More than anything I feel that we are valued as individuals, our views are sought, listened to and acted upon.

It feels good to be working in an organisation like this – even though our workload can be enormous, the challenges we face stretching – our successes can be transformational.”

Our Organisation
Currently seven Divisions manage and run the affairs of the Trust on a daily basis. They comprise three delivery divisions: Learning, Rural Development, Culture and Heritage, In addition to four service divisions:  Finance , Human Resources & Administration  , Research , Strategy Management and Planning & Corporate Communications .The Trust is managed by an Executive Management Team consisting of qualified Division Heads, who are responsible for planning and developing strategies as well as overseeing the proper implementation and evaluation of activities and programmes.
Her Excellency Mrs. Asma Al Assad chairs the Organisation, to ensure that social development goals are achieved in line with the national vision for social change and development.