Relief Assistance for Syrian Refugees in Jordan

[Hygiene Education]

The New Year is a time for the JEN’s hygiene promotion team in the Za’atari camp to start a new project for children.  Nearly 40% of the camp’s population are children under 11; our projects will provide them with psychosocial care as well as promoting good hygiene behaviour.

On 16 January 2014, JEN kicked off our hygiene promotion in 2014 with a monthly hygiene promotion event for children at the JEN’s tent in District 4. The key message of January 2014 is “personal hygiene.” Further to the key message of December 2013, “water conservation,” we stressed the importance of water by some ingenious activities: singing songs, a play by Syrian children, quiz contest, and poster contest under the theme of “What does water mean to you?” And of course, you can’t end a party without gifts! All children who attended the event received a hygiene pack containing toothbrush, toothpaste and soap. Through these activities for children, we have been working on hygiene promotion in the camp. JEN stuff is looking forward to the next event in February 2014—for sure, children are looking forward it too!

Our hygiene project has been carried out also for public schools in local communities outside of the camp. The JEN Amman office, which has provided assistance to Syrian refugees for over a year, is just about to finish all renovation works in 150 schools. One of the schools used to have only four latrine seats despite the large scale of over 1,000 boy students. JEN discussed with the Directorate of Education Engineer team and the headmaster and remodelled a storeroom into new latrines. In a mixed school where boy students and girl students used to use the same latrines, girls were hesitant to use the latrines as boys would be playing nearby. So we refurbished the dead space in the back to extend the latrines, then built a partition to separate them for boys and girls. Thus, the JEN engineering team renovates schools on a case-by-case basis, identifying what is required and what can be done. Relatively-young members’ passion for good-quality work can’t be overestimated. With increasing needs, we have not only planned to renovate water and sanitation facilities in another 50 schools, but also we have started building new classrooms to expand school capacities in order to accept Syrian students.

[Emergency Material Distribution]

15 March 2014 marked three years since the conflict in Syria broke out. JEN has started distributing clothes to new arrivals in the reception area of the Za’atari camp to meet the needs of refugees. Since 10 March 2014, we have distributed a bag filled with clothes donated by our partners to each newly arrived families. Because we are unable to conduct pre-survey on family size and structure among new refugees, we are required to instantly arrange each bag on their arrival. Thanks to seven distribution staff working 24/7 on a two-shift system, we assisted more than 800 individuals for the first three days. They were very glad to receive warm clothes in the middle of the night. This project couldn’t have done this smoothly without hard work of the warehouse team who carefully sorts and repacks donated clothes. The team has already prepared 40,000 individual sets since the beginning of January 2014! The number of refugees arriving in the Za’atari camp varies every day, but the JEN team is ready to welcome them with warm clothes any time.

Links:

• JEN Official Web site
• Twitter JEN Jordan team
• Facebook

The second winter has come since JEN started its support in Za'atari camp and the host communities in Jordan.

The rainy season and winter come at the same time in this country. While it was severely snowing in Amman, heavy rain poured on Za'atari, 50 km east of Amman. Although precipitation is usually limited and rain is a precious water resource in Jordan, this rain caused flood damages in Za'atari camp and Syrian refugees’ dwellings were submerged.

JEN started emergency assistance in cooperation with UNHCR and other INGOs to mitigate the flood damages caused by the rain in Za'atari camp. The caravans and tents were badly immersed in the puddles of various sizes formed by this rain. Other concerns that emerged were the danger caused by the electric cables and the deterioration of the hygienic environment.

The day after it started raining, JEN immediately allocated five trucks with the sump pump and a tank. More than 20 of JEN staff members were engaged in the operation and almost 1228 m³ of stagnating water was taken out of the camp. Two more trucks were prepared in case the situation worsened.

In addition, JEN established an emergency hotline with all WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene)  Committees so that they would be able to inform JEN of the puddles with the risk of electric shock. JEN’s hygiene promoters and community mobilizers also played an important role in preventing the residences from flood damages. The WASH Committees received the distribution of shovels and pickaxes in advance as weather forecast announced heavy rain. The hygiene promoters and the community mobilizers went on house-to-house visits, informing and advising refugees about the availability of the tools in addition to instructing them on the proper usage of the tools.

Warm Clothes Distributed to Syrian Refugees in Zaatari to Support Them Face Winter

To get ready to face the cold temperatures, a winterization program was launched at the beginning of December by the organizations working in Za'atari camp, and JEN took an active part in it by distributing warm clothes to the Syrian refugees.

Since the Camp is located in the desert, the nights can be very hard to endure especially for the thousands of families still living in tents, with kids and babies.

To help them face the harsh temperatures, JEN has distributed personalized family packages containing a set of warm clothes to every family member. To fit the needs of each household, the bags distributed were organized in a system of more than 350 different types corresponding to each type of family who is resident in the camp.

JEN has incorporated refugees in the target area into every step of distribution. Several meetings with the community groups in each district in the camp were held in order to increase the feeling of ownership of the distribution process and take responsibility in building their community.

A new day dawning marks the onset of a distribution day for JEN’s staff as the trucks need to be loaded by 5 a.m. They then take the road for an hour drive to get to the camp in a convoy of 8 to 16 trucks depending on the size of the district.

Each truck is loaded with boxes to be distributed to one or two streets in a district. When the trucks arrive at the camp, each of them is accompanied by JEN’s staff members who would lead the way to the destination.

When JEN staff visit the districts where distribution has been completed in the previous weeks, they receive positive feedback from the refugees. Refugees are happy with the quality of the clothes, the personalized packages, and the way they have been involved in the distribution process.

Inspired by JEN’s Hygiene Promotion

Currently around 77% of Syrian refugees in Jordan temporarily live in host communities outside of the camps.

In Jordanian public schools of the host communities, JEN is working on the renovation of water facilities and sanitation facilities, and hygiene promotion activities. Hygiene promotion activities consist of teacher training on hygiene education and student hygiene sessions conducted under the supervision of the trained teachers.

Student hygiene sessions in some schools in Zarqa governorate were carried out by JEN’s hygiene promoters. The contents of the student sessions were developed by sharing various education methods between JEN’s hygiene promoters and the teachers on training.

One classroom’s theme of the hygiene promotion activity was cholera, one of the water-borne diseases. The class started with the students’ role-play. In it, a child who buys and eats snacks from an unhygienic food stall suffers from a stomachache and may have to go to see a doctor. It was a full-fledged roll-play: the student who played the role of a stall seller painted a mustache on her face while the student who performed as a doctor checked up Vibrio cholera under a microscope.

The expressive role-play was followed by groups’ work in which each group wrote down the causes, symptoms, prevention, and treatment of cholera on big sheets of paper, which was then followed by a plenary discussion.

Although cholera outbreak has not been confirmed in Jordan so far, education and awareness of this sanitation- and hygiene-related epidemic can always be very useful in emergency situations for both the Syrian refugees and Jordanian host communities. By rolling out the information acquired in the sessions, the students can serve as the messengers to their families and to the small communities.

In the last stage of this student session, all students went to the water fountain and practiced the right way of hand washing.

Also, messages for water saving practices were written on the walls near the water fountains.

Improving hygiene in the school environment cannot be accomplished by JEN’s effort alone. JEN strongly believes that it is essential to continue such activities and to motivate the headmasters, teachers, and students to do what they can do to make their own learning environment better.

Links:

• JEN Official Web site
• Twitter
• Twitter JEN Jordan team