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Australian gov’t provides UNICEF Jordan with $10 million grant for next two years

By Suzanna Goussous - Jul 25,2017 - Last updated at Aug 08,2017

Australian lawmakers, representatives of UNICEF and Save the Children interact with Jordanian and Syrian children at the Makani Centre in Wadi Al Seer on Monday (Photo by Suzanna Goussous)

AMMAN — The Australian government on Monday provided UNICEF Jordan with a $10 million grant for the next two years, aimed at improving the educational system and services provided at institutes for Syrian and Jordanian children.

Robert Jenkins, UNICEF representative in Jordan, said that the programmes held by UNICEF seek to foster social cohesion: “We are trying to build a more cohesive society; to break down barriers between populations that don’t normally interact”.

The programme will be run in partnership with Save the Children Jordan and Australia offices.

“In the Middle East, there are some very powerful forces that are trying to separate people. We’re trying to counter that by bringing people together,” he said at the event held at the UNICEF-supported Makani Centre in Wadi Al Seer, in the presence of Australian officials and MPs.

He said the Makani Centre represents one of the 130 centres that UNICEF partners with, 45 of which are in refugee camps, educating Jordanian, Palestinian and Syrian children.

The centre provides learning support for children both in and out of schools, basic life skills for youth, including communication, empowerment, interaction with peers and negotiations, all in the 40-hour programme.

Children are afterwards encouraged to join other programmes, including vocational training, entrepreneurial skills and job deployment programmes, Jenkins added.

Sometimes, children need psychosocial support, which ranges from level one, which is when they show frustration, to level four, which is when they no longer interact with the environment around them, he explained.

The psychosocial support also depends on the trauma faced prior to entering Jordan, or during first weeks or months in Jordan, including their day-to-day challenges.

“The ultimate objective is for our kids to realise their full potential,” Jenkins said, adding that around 250,000 children in the Kingdom were reached by the programme, by being registered through an online system and tracking their progress.

The grant donated is part of the Australian government’s  three year $174 million humanitarian response in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The Australian ambassador to Jordan, Miles Robert Armitage, said the contribution is part of the role of the international community in aiding Jordan and Syrian refugees.

“The response to the Syria crisis is very much about partnership… partnership between the international community and the government and people of Jordan,” the ambassador said.

He added: “The government of Jordan identified education as a priority… If we don’t see the consequences of neglecting children displaced through conflict that they had no choice in, they are innocent victims.”

A share of the programme, he said, is designed to provide humanitarian assistance to Syrians inside Syria, and Syrian people affected outside of Syria, while 40 per cent is designated to support the priorities of the governments of Jordan and Lebanon.

The ambassador told The Jordan Times: “It’s very clear from the Jordan response plan that education is vital as part of the response to Syria crisis, both to the Syrian children directly affected and for Jordan, since education had a heavy impact from the crisis.”

Rania Malki, CEO of Save the Children Jordan, said: “We are a national organisation and we are very happy that UNICEF sees the power of engaging national partners that have the connections.”

“In order to have an effect, real change and real impacts, it has to be through collective and comprehensive work of all organisations,” she added.

CEO of Save the Children Australia, Paul Ronalds, said in times of conflict and humanitarian crises, the education of children “suffers”.

“Not only is it [education] important for the future of the child, it is actually a very important protection mechanism — to ensure children are not subject to labour and trafficking issues,” he told The Jordan Times.

Under the new grant, UNICEF will launch the “Learning-For-All” Campaign next month, before the start of the new academic year, to make sure every child in Jordan is registered in school. 

For the 2016-2017 academic year, there were more than 126,000 Syrian children enrolled in public schools in Jordan.

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