Relief Assistance for Syrian Refugees in Jordan

In October 2014, JEN started a journalism workshop to train young people whose basic writing skills. Four-parts of the workshop covered: basic grammar; interviewing techniques; reporting techniques, and ethics of journalism. The workshop also taught professional news- and story-writing and interviewing skills to participants between 15-24 years old in response to the repeated interest expressed by them.

Once the participants completed the 4-series course, they applied for the skills learned to collect stories for next issues of the magazine under the mentorship of JEN’s professional editors and journalists.  At the same time, the editors guided the participants through the editing process of their own articles, and the graphic designers worked together to develop the magazine design. The participants worked under supervising of the mentors and they were creating issues, at which point, they were qualified as an independent journalist for the magazine. The workshop participants received a certificate and they were invited as volunteer journalists to contribute to the magazine going forward to further hone their writing skills. Also, most of the participants have been from the youth community.

THE ROAD, the magazine has been named, is a refugee magazine of the Syrians, by the Syrians and for the Syrians.

April2016, THE ROAD turned 2 years since the first issue came out and we have enjoyed seeing 63 refugees become journalists through the development of the magazine.The last month, we selected two journalists for the best articles of the month awards.

You can see a picture that shows sometimes they do meetings under the blue sky.  

We hope more refugees who will join the team to spread the voices of the refugees in and out of the camp in the upcoming months and years.In fact, THE ROAD does not suddenly flourish its success and the magazine creation is aimed to train young stars in the refugee camp.

One of the journalists completed the workshop shows his determination: “we are fully aware of our responsibility as the professional journalists and so we keep to spread information that is needed by the residents in the camp. The member of the team has committed to objectivity, accuracy and professionalism and we will not use our profession for wrong purpose.”

JEN has started the establishment of the sewerage network.  This project is expected to be completed in 2017.

The project aims to link all the residents to the sewage network that will transfer the wastewater to the treatment plant inside the camp. It provides a great service to help get rid of all types of wastewater (gray and black) and maintain the groundwater environment in the governorate of Mafraq (Jordan).

Project Description

The project consists of two phases:

- First, use HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) pipelines to connect the caravans to the concrete tanks that collect solid waste;

- Second, connect the concrete tanks to the treatment plant in the camp.

Implementation of this project involves a lot of challenges, which make the process extremely difficult. Some detailed examples are as follows.

1. Public safety

Public safety is one of the major challenges and concerns. To ensure that safety requirements are well met, several measures are taken such as using warning tapes and metal barriers.

In addition, we also conducted extensive education for parents about the potential danger involved with children playing near the construction sites. Those are important measures to raise the awareness among community members, especially children, to stay away from machineries and construction sites.  

2. Randomly distributed caravans

Since the refugees and caravans are scattered in the region, our work becomes unusually hard.

To overcome this problem, we have planned several field inspections ahead to collect data from the project site on a daily basis, after which we drafted designs and instructions accordingly.

3. Damages and losses of resources

When the project staffs leave the field, they make sure to secure the site and keep all materials and machineries in safe places.

However, the losses of some equipment and construction materials are still unavoidable. Therefore, it requires extra precautions during the project in order to minimize the losses. This could be achieved through hiring local security guards, whom live in the same area where the project construction sites are located.

4. The continuous migration of refugees

Some refugees keep moving from one place to another in order to live together with their relatives or get access to better services.

Despite the continuous migration, we are trying to organize refugees into living blocks and convince them that the infrastructure projects, such as wastewater network, are making great progress.

JEN also provides the guidelines for engineering project such as roads, buildings, water and wastewater projects.

Our task is one of the many important factors to make the project successful. It facilitates the installation of the pipes in fixed positions and slopes to prevent blockage in the network.

After the project is completed, most problems related to the sewage disposal suffered by Syrian refugees in Za’atari camp are expected to be resolved. It will also help protect the groundwater in the aquifer under Mafraq Governorate (Jordan) from potential contamination.