Jordan Times
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Save the Children launches new
community-based programs
NASEEJ's objective is to increase the employability of Jordanians aged 18-24
AMMAN (JT) — Save the Children USA announced a major expansion of its efforts to
engage youth and teenagers throughout the Middle East in community-based
development programmes late Monday.
At a ceremony held under the patronage of Their Majesties King Abdullah and
Queen Rania, Save the Children USA President and CEO Charles MacCormack unveiled
the two new programmes — NASEEJ and NAJAH — calling them “an important next step
in our continuing efforts to help teenagers and young adults determine their own
futures.”
During the ceremony, the organisation, in partnership with Timberland, hosted
“Mubadarat Shababeya” (Youth Initiative), an event featuring a youth performance
entitled “RISE!” — a series of sketches representing the challenges and hopes of
young people as positive agents of change in their communities.
The nine actors of “RISE!” incorporated commentary from a study to determine “an
Arab definition of youth leadership,” into the text of the play, said local Save
the Children staff member Lina Hamdan.
The piece revealed the frustrations of Jordanian youth including unemployment,
public transportation, increasing university fees, and ageism.
The new NASEEJ Programme, a regional community youth development initiative,
intends to target these problems at a regional level.
It will be implemented in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, and
Yemen over the next two years.
The goal is to build healthy communities where the youth are active and valued
contributors and where opportunities and space for equitable partnership between
youth and adults takes place.
Among other things, the programme will provide sub-grants to implement
initiatives with, for, and by youth, as well as create an independent fund to
provide Arab youth with opportunities for travel.
Jordan is to be the regional hub of the NASEEJ Programme and the pilot country
for NAJAH, a new youth employment initiative supported by the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID).
Like NASEEJ, the programme will take into account the survey of Arab youth and
provide the infrastructure to solve several of the problems highlighted in RISE!
NASEEJ's objective is to increase the employability of Jordanians aged 18-24 by
focusing on soft skills such as leadership, presentation and time management,
and by linking youth to existing job opportunities and supporting them to stay
in work, especially during the first year.
The success of INJAZ, the Jordanian Regional Youth Initiative funded by USAID,
was also underscored at Monday's ceremony. It has reached more than 40,000
students in the Kingdom according to Deema Bibi, executive director of INJAZ.
The programme began as a Save the Children project in 1999.
His Majesty King Abdullah commended Save the Children on Monday.
“[The organisation] has contributed greatly to Jordan's social development,
particularly by empowering women and youth,” the King said during a meeting with
MacCormack and Dennis Walto, the organisation's field office director for Jordan
and Lebanon.
In an interview with The Jordan Times, both MacCormack and Walto highlighted the
importance of local involvement for sustainable development.
“No one from the outside brings anyone development. Anyone from the outside
[just] helps,” said MacCormack.
“The success of the programmes also involves finding the balance between
`traditional values' and change,” according to the organisation's president.
“It is extremely positive,” he commented, “how Jordan has managed to go from a
traditional society to a global society... while still maintaining its
traditions.”
According to the Amman office of Save the Children, all of the programmes
started in the Kingdom are still up and running, with programme leadership
coming from growth within the organisation as well as outsourcing.
“Jordan's development will be led by Jordanians,” Walto emphasised.
The Kingdom's youth made it known through their performance at the ceremony
Monday evening that they want to be a part of this development and benefit from
it as well. “Wake up, get up. We are not just passing bodies,” actors echoed
throughout the piece. “We crave a deeper life.”