Jordan Times
Monday, April 26, 2004
Queen shares success stories,
meets residents of Sakhra village in Ajloun
By Rami Abdelrahman
AJLOUN — Her Majesty Queen Rania yesterday visited the village of Sakhra in the
Ajloun Governorate, to check on the living conditions of its residents and
examine the effectiveness of sustainable development projects being implemented
in the area.
The Queen went to the Sakhra Women's Cooperative Society, which was established
last year. Local farmers' wives briefed her on their projects and their success
stories.
“I am a mother of six children, and I help my husband financially by arranging
and selling flowers,” one of the 100 society members told Queen Rania, who
expressed satisfaction that the women of Sakhra were establishing
income-generating projects.
In the society's meeting hall, where courses are given to train women on
agriculture, administration and family planning, Queen Rania spoke with local
women and asked them to maintain the quality of their production. She stressed
on the need for training to acquire new skills in addition to the importance of
upgrading the quality of goods and marketing them.
An enthusiastic woman told Her Majesty how a bee-keeping project she recently
started was expected to pay for her sons' university expenses.
Women entrepreneurs' projects in the village, with a population of 18,000, are
financed by loans granted by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ)
to the society.
Jorg Weik, who heads the GTZ's Jordan office, told The Jordan Times that his
team follows up and monitors how the grant is being distributed to help around
100 families.
The society has been successful in employing 29 women in an area whose community
was against women being employed outside the farms.
It was able to create more than 50 success stories by achieving its objectives:
Increasing healthcare, income and productivity of women through
environment-friendly projects.
The society was able to establish a dairy factory, which the Queen also visited.
She met workers who briefed her on how income-generating projects had helped
their families.
The Queen also paid a surprise visit to “That Al Nitaqein School” which provides
education for 250 first to fifth grade students. She toured the nursery and
kindergarten where she discussed with teachers their needs for toys and
furniture as well as repair and maintenance work. The school lacks a heating
system, and the condition of its doors and desks is poor.
Later, Queen Rania visited a three-room house in the village, which was built
under a Royal endowment (makruma) to provide a home for a family consisting of
four girls, three boys, their father who is unwell and their mother.
Um Mohammad, the mother, told the Queen that her family's living conditions had
improved, especially because she had recently been working — through the society
— on a wheat-blender (raha) to earn a living.