For Amal, AHP brings a teaching opportunity and a chance to help

Above: Amal, an Arabic language facilitator with the AHP response in Jordan, is passionate about helping out of school children get the education they deserve. Photo: Dalia Kharoufeh/Plan Jordan

Vulnerable communities in Jordan are facing compounding pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic. With high rates of child labor and many kids out of school, huge numbers of newly-arrived families who have fled conflict in neighbouring countries, and the health and economic impacts of the pandemic, communities are struggling to access basic needs.

The Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) response in Jordan, led by Save the Children Australia with CARE Australia, Plan Australia and local partner Nour Al Hussein Foundation/Institute for Family Health, aims to improve access to health, education and livelihoods support for young people and their families.

For Amal, a recent university graduate with a passion for teaching and a love for the Arabic language, the project has also provided an opportunity to help others and boost her teaching skills.

Amal recently joined the Wadi Al-Rayyan Ladies Association, a local partner to the AHP project in Jordan, after seeing their work providing children with tutoring in Maths and Arabic. She saw the opportunity to join the AHP project while scrolling through the organisation’s Facebook page. She had always wanted to be an Arabic language facilitator, and was thrilled to be accepted as a staff member into the new project.

“I was over the moon to see that I was accepted into the position, I could finally start making a difference,” Amal said.

As a facilitator with the project, Amal will delivering informal Arabic language education sessions to vulnerable out-of-school children, including Syrian refugees.

Amal’s journey as a facilitator with the AHP project began on the ground. During the project's outreach phase, she and a team of other facilitators travelled to local communities in search of children and their families that could take part. The team targeted both Jordanian and Syrian families, and emphasised the importance of including persons with disabilities.

“We wanted everybody to benefit, we were so eager to help,” Amal said.

Above: Project facilitators taking part in an activity during the teacher training held by Plan Jordan in January 2022, which equipped facilitators with new methods and strategies to help teach vulnerable, out-of-school children. Photo: Rama Dahabra/Plan Jordan

The team was able to reach over 200 interested families, but this process left Amal feeling quite deflated, as she was hit with the reality faced by the communities they had visited.

“I didn’t realise this many children were left without an education, without help or hope,” she recalled.

However, Amal realised how important her work was and how much the community needed support.

“I suddenly got the motivation to keep going, to push forward, to see this through... These people need us,” she said.

Amal then joined Plan Jordan's five-day training for new staff, including teachers who would be supporting out of school children. The training sessions showed Amal and other facilitators how they could deliver interactive and engaging lessons, steering clear of more traditional methods used in schools.

Above: Project facilitators with their completion certificates after finishing the course. Photo: Dalia Kharoufeh/Plan Jordan

The training also gave the facilitators practical skills in how to support people struggling with the impacts of the pandemic and the other issues that vulnerable families may face, such as a lack of devices available to access remote learning opportunities.

Amal was equipped with the necessary tools, theoretical knowledge, technical skills and experience to provide out-of-school children with a pathway back to an education.

Amal also learnt how to deliver lessons remotely to minimise the spread of COVID-19.

“I will be in charge of a WhatsApp group with 25 participants,” she said proudly. “I will be giving homework and video and audio lessons through it. It is such an amazing way to keep teaching going.”

Amal is grateful for what she has learned and has already found ways to incorporate her new knowledge into her family life when tutoring her nieces and nephews. She says that through the training she realised that traditional forms of teaching might not always be best for all students, and that using innovative methods like games, storytelling and sports can help students better understand and retain information.

Amal looks forward to commencing work with the project and hopes it will help nourish the children of the communities she visited.

Story: Rama Dahabra and Dalia Kharoufeh, Plan Jordan