Third year of “Women in Dialogue” –programme completed in Capacity Development Training of partner CBOs

October 13,2016 8:22 PM

Third year of “Women in Dialogue” –programme gathering Syrian and Jordanian women from Mafraq governorate vulnerable village was completed in excitement, as our partner CBOs from each village finalized their workplans to address some of the persisting social problems in each community.

Mafraq governorate is one of the hardest hit by the influx of refugees from the neighboring Syria, resulting in the population almost doubling in the governorate and the proportion of Syrians reaching as high as 60-70% in some villages. While initially the relations between refugees and hosts were amicable and mutual help was exchanged, the prolongation of the situation has led many communities to exhaustion and many families – both Syrian and Jordanian – to struggle to meet their daily ends in the face of waning local resources.

In our “Women in Dialogue” –programme groups, implemented since 2014 in partnership with Hanns Seidel Foundation Amman Office, we train local Syrian and Jordanian women from vulnerable households with basic life and conflict mediation skills, with the aim to help them to manage with everyday situations and ease tensions with their Syrian or Jordanian counterparts. The groups have also proven necessary for general stress-release and much needed “break” from daily chores in a context where women do not have organized spaces for leisure-time activities, hobbies or entertainment.

“I was very happy to get to participate in this training programme, since it gave me an opportunity to exchange opinions with other Syrian and Jordanian women and integrate with them. I wish there were more programmes like this to educate me about my rights and obligations as a refugee and human being”, a Syrian participant of one of the dialogue groups stated.

CBOs to take the lead in solving local problems

As a new element in this year’s “Women in Dialogue” –programme, Future Pioneers and Hanns Seidel Foundation decided to put more focus on developing the capacity of partner CBOs in each targeted village. They hereby attempted to respond to the various requests received from the ground to lessen the local communities’ dependence on projects implemented by big national or international NGOs and instead provide the methods, tools and resources for local associations to do so. With enhanced local CBOs’ capacities, also our work to facilitate inter-group relations between Syrians and Jordanians will become more effective and sustainable, and the role of women in influencing community affairs strengthened, since all our partner CBOs on the ground are women-led and consist of a majority-female membership.

“Women with whom we work in these villages have immense internal strength and power to influence their families and close surroundings. It is through them that we are able to mobilize entire communities and gather forces to make life better for children, youth, and for the women themselves. That is why we must make our best to support the local women’s CBOs, to keep this work going even in between and beyond our project’s activities”, Ms. Obyda Hummash, Executive Director of Future Pioneers said.

At the end of the 5-day-long capacity development training, the CBOs had worked to polish their associations’ vision, mission and goals, and learned practical tools on how to conduct participatory needs assessment engaging a variety of community members and local stakeholders. As a result, the CBOs had developed tangible workplans, which shall tackle local social problems starting from school dropouts and drug use to child labor and violence at schools, and which they will implement in the course of 2017 with a coaching support from Future Pioneers-Hanns Seidel –project team.

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“Mediating Dialogue and Conflict Resolution between Syrian Refugees and Jordanian Host Communities” is a multi-year project implemented in Mafraq governorate vulnerable villages in partnership with Future Pioneers and Hanns Seidel Foundation Amman Office. The project activities have included “Women in Dialogue”, “Women and Climate Change”, and “Students in Dialogue” –programmes, as well as support to women-led local community initiatives. In 2016-2018, the project puts particular emphasis on developing the capacity of local women’s CBOs, in this way making the project’s activities more sustainable and impactful on the ground.