‘Jordan River Foundation seeks funds to expand hospitality training programme’

AMMAN — The Jordan River Foundation (JRF) said Thursday it will intensify its efforts to secure funding and cooperate with more hotels to expand its hospitality training programme to employ Jordanians in the field.

JRF Director General Ghaleb Qudah said that about 34 Jordanians benefited from the programme this year, which is some 35 per cent less than those who benefited from the programme last year mainly due to a shortage in funding.

“We need more funding for the programme,” he said.

Since the programme’s launch in 2007, about 220 young Jordanians were trained in several hotels and 70 per cent of them were able to find jobs in the field, according to Qudah.

The JRF will also reach out to expand the network of hotels it works with to increase the number of beneficiaries, he added.

Currently, the JRF cooperates with seven hotels in Amman and Aqaba, and plans to reach out to hotels in Petra and the Dead Sea to benefit more young Jordanians from different governorates, Qudah told The Jordan Times.

The JRF is implementing the programme to train young people at five-star hotels as part of the Youth Career Initiative (YCI).

The YCI entails intensive training over a six-month period, which includes English classes, ICT courses, workshops on interpersonal skills, and lessons in personal finance, personal health and well-being. Beneficiaries also receive on-site training in the Kingdom’s hotels.

The JRF has been running the initiative in cooperation with the International Business Leaders Forum for the past seven years.

To date, YCI has implemented its programme in 11 countries across the world: Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Thailand and Vietnam.

The YCI is used as a tool to tackle or prevent issues such as youth unemployment, social exclusion, poverty and exploitation, according to its website.