By Amy Hybels
AMMAN - Eight Iraqi youth have a new lease on life. Two weeks ago the British-based NGO Questscope moved the boys from a small furnished apartment on Queen Rania Street into a large, two-storey duplex on Wasfi Tal (Gardens) Street in west Amman.
The 300-square-metre apartment with a backyard has two bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large kitchen and reception area.
Another large room off the kitchen will be transformed into a recreation room once computers and a ping-pong table are delivered.
All of the teenagers sheltered by Questscope had either been living on their own or staying with friends or strangers since leaving Iraq.
UNHCR figures indicate 29 per cent of the 54,400 registered Iraqis in the Kingdom are under the age of 18. And 220 of those children are either “unaccompanied” or “separated” from their parents.
A recent grant of $1.7 million from UNHCR has enabled Questscope to expand its outreach to young Iraqis in Jordan.
In addition to providing Iraqi and Jordanian youth with nonformal education, the organisation is using the money to help Iraqi kids who have no place to call home.
One of the tenants, a 17-year-old who for the purposes of this interview we’ll refer to as “Sahm” is already warming up to his new digs.
The house “chef” says he feels most at home in the kitchen, where he spends two-and-a-half hours a day preparing meals for his seven housemates and two case managers.
Sitting at a table in the apartment’s large airy receiving room, Sahm talks about the transition from his life in Diwaniyah, in southern Iraq, to life in Jordan.
Through a Questscope interpreter, Sahm says that when he first arrived in 2004, he rented a room behind the Kherbet Al Souq, an area in south Amman popular with Iraqis.
Sahm says he was able to connect with the community and find enough work to pay rent.
But things changed after Sahm says he went into hiding to avoid detection by police. Working for only a few hours a day forced the teenager to find another place to live.
The Labour Law prohibits non-Jordanians from working without a work permit.
Sahm then moved to Wihdat, a Palestinian refugee camp in south Amman.
Things went downhill after that. Work was scarce and a fight with a friend resulted in Sahm leaving the group of friends he had come to know and wandering the streets for three days without sleep.
With no place to stay and nowhere to turn, Sahm ended up going to the UNHCR to ask for food and clothes. He refused to leave until he got help.
That is when Haitham Zou’bi, the UNHCR Project Manager for Questscope shelter got a phone call. Sahm moved into the shelter five days later.
Zou’bi says when Sahm first arrived at the shelter his clothes were dirty, and he suspected the young man had a drinking problem. Zou’bi, who has a PhD in counselling, noted the boy was struggling with violence and anger issues.
However, Zou’bi says he has also observed a change in the boy.
“He’s starting to cope with his new environment,” he adds.
Questscope President Curt Rhodes says the shelter provides unaccompanied Iraqi children like Sahm with an alternative to living on the streets or staying with strangers.
“It’s very crucial for the 25 to 75 children who have no place to stay,” said Rhodes, “because it makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation.”
Rhodes says his organisation makes sure that the people who work with Questscope have no police record.
In the case of the Iraqis who work for the organisation, Rhodes says since there is no police record to obtain from Iraq, all are required to undergo a screening process, similar to what the organisation does for Jordanian mentors who volunteer.
When asked about the challenges Iraqi children are facing, Rhodes replies, “Every 10 kids will have 10 stories. But they will mostly be marked by severe emotional trauma. They have seen things that children should never see.”
Speaking through his interpreter, Sahm says his father was killed in Iraq and militia tortured his older brother. While he believes his brother is still alive in Iraq, Sahm says he does not know his whereabouts.
During the interview Sahm does not talk much about his old life, but focuses instead on what he is doing now.
“Right now I live in a place where I can sleep, I have clothes, I have people around me, and I can go out and breathe some air,” he said.
Sahm is also able to earn a little extra pocket change by preparing meals. He says he wants to become a chef and has already enrolled in a cooking arts class.
The 17-year-old, who turns 18 on Monday, says his biggest concern is what will happen to him after he leaves the shelter.
Zou’bi says if he stays on good behaviour, Sahm will be allowed to stay at the shelter until he is 19.
In the meantime, the young man who feels most at home in the kitchen excuses himself from the table to begin dinner preparations.
Back in the kitchen, Sahm busies himself chopping onions without shedding a tear.
He explains that the Iraqi dish he’s preparing consists of lamb and tomato sauce with rice.
“Dinner will be served at 8:30,” he adds.
Rhodes says Questscope believes a lot of the trauma can be dealt with by trying to restore children to a normal life.
“Children who live in a regular situation where the same thing starts to happen every day, they know what to expect,” says Rhodes. “There’s going to be a teacher there for them, or somebody will be there for breakfast.”
Rhodes also stresses the importance of letting each child know they are valued.
“They need someone that can look in their eyes and say: ‘I’m for you’,” says Rhodes. “So I’m driven by this commitment to ensure that every child has a champion.”
The shelter on Gardens Street can take in up to 20 boys. If the need should arise, Haitham Zou’bi says Questscope is prepared to look into plans to open up a shelter for girls.
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Safeguards vary…
By Amy Hybels
AMMAN - While Questscope says its Jordanian employees are required to undergo criminal background checks, some of the foreign NGOs who work with children in Jordan only require staff sign a “code of conduct” statement.
Angelita Caredda, Jordan Programme Director for Relief International, says the American-based NGO, which runs four community centres, does not run criminal background checks on its employees or volunteers.
Instead, she says, “all paid employees must sign off on Relief International’s code of conduct.”
She adds the organisation does not have a specific code of conduct for volunteers but is in the process of developing one.
Caredda says the NGO receives one-third of its funding from the US government.
David Brigham, country director for Jordan Mercy Corps, says his organisation checks references but does not require criminal background checks for its employees.
“It’s not a conscious decision not to do this,” says Brigham. “It’s not a standard practice among NGOs generally.”
Brigham adds that most of its youth programmes are run by partner organisations.
Mercy Corps receives funding from the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) and UNHCR for programmes that assist Iraqis.
PRM does not require the organisations it funds to run criminal background checks.
“We have other measures we feel are good tools,” said a State Department official, “including a requirement that all of our partners comply with the code of conduct on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse and extensive monitoring of our partners’ activities.”
Not everyone is satisfied with having employees sign off on a “code of conduct” statement, however.
The Unicef office in Jordan says it requires everyone who works for it to undergo criminal background checks.
Right now Unicef does not oblige every organisation it works with to undergo background checks but that could change.
Emergency Programme Coordinator Jon Cunliffe says the recent findings in the report entitled, “No One to Turn To” by Save the Children UK “may mean we change our requirements in the future.”
The focus of the report is on abuse committed by foreign aid workers and peacekeepers working in countries impacted by natural disasters or conflicts. The fieldwork was conducted in 2007 in southern Sudan, the Cote D’Ivoire and Haiti.
The report states the fieldwork suggests, “Nearly half of the people we spoke to identified orphans and children separated from their parents as the most likely to be abused.”
Report author Corinna Csaky says the findings suggest this is a problem in every emergency. She says Save the Children UK, where possible, tries to obtain criminal background checks on staff and volunteers who have direct contact with children.
However, Save the Children US, which operates five offices in Jordan, does not require its employees or volunteers to undergo criminal background checks.
The organisation requires employees, volunteers and partner organisations to sign and train on its “code of conduct” on child protection.
Acting Country Director Amy Mina says: “Our child protection policy and approach enables everyone to make child protection their responsibility.”
The UNHCR office in Jordan, which funds the work of NGOs, says it takes the issue of sexual violence and exploitation seriously.
However, the organisation does not run criminal checks on either its staff or implementing partners.
Deputy Representative Arafat Jamal says all new UN staff are required to sign a declaration which inquires if they have ever been arrested, indicted, or summoned into court as a defendant in a criminal proceeding, or convicted, fined or imprisoned for the violation of any law.
Implementing partners have to sign a “code of conduct” statement which requires them to “prevent, oppose and combat all exploitation and abuse of refugees”.
When it comes to the issue of abuse committed by its own staff, Jamal says UNHCR pursues a zero-tolerance policy.
The Ministry of Social Development, which supervises foreign NGOs registered in Jordan, does not require these organisations to obtain background checks on staff or volunteers. |
