Five-year Najahna project launched to empower refugee youth in workforce

AMMAN — Najahna (our success), is a youth empowerment programme for Syrian refugees and other conflict-affected youth, focused specifically on adolescent girls and young women in Jordan by employing a “gender transformative” approach.

The five-year project (2022-2026), funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation in collaboration with Plan International Jordan, was launched in Amman on Tuesday. Its goal of promoting youth empowerment in Jordan aligns closely with the Kingdom’s strategic crisis responses: the Jordan Response Plan (JRP) and the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP).

“The project will support Jordan’s enduring commitment to continue building an integrated, multi-year framework to respond to the Syrian crisis in a transparent, collaborative and sustainable manner in line with the Global Compact on Refugees framework,” according to a statement from Plan International.

The Najahna consortium is composed of five organisations, Plan International (Consortium Lead), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the Royal Health Awareness Society (RHAS), Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Confederation of Danish Industries (DI), according to a presentation at the event.

The programme will target 12 to 25-year-old Syrian refugees and conflict-affected youth, with a particular focus on young women living in urban, semi-urban, rural and camp settings. The programme will focus on the northern and central governorates of Jordan, where 96 per cent of registered refugees reside, including the Azraq and Zaatari refugee camps, the event heard.

The programme will help empower Syrian refugees and other vulnerable youth, with the skills and capacities necessary to pursue sustainable work opportunities. In doing so, the programme will also challenge and break down gender, social and economic barriers as beneficiaries become active members of civil society, according to Plan International.

“Najahna will challenge gender norms and roles to enable equal opportunities for young men and women. The programme has been designed around the ‘gender transformative’ approach, which aims to advance gender equality in Jordan, ultimately supporting girls and women to make informed choices and be active agents in reshaping unequal gender and power relations,” the statement said.

Hamida Jahamah, Plan International Country director in Jordan, said that Najahna is a set of activities to support young men and women in Jordan so young people can gain agency within a supportive and safe environment.

“Plan International’s educational and economic programmes seek to ensure the economic integration of youth by combining education, vocational and technical training and life skills, in addition to ensuring that young people in all regions and governorates of the Kingdom, especially girls, have the opportunity to participate in decision-making,” Jahamah said during her remarks.

Senior Vice President of Novo Nordisk Foundation Hanna Line praised the Jordanian government’s efforts in hosting refugees, highlighting the significance of the Kingdom’s role in supporting the influx of refugees.

“Humanitarian aid is important, but refugees also need business logic to create jobs and opportunities for young people,” Line noted.

Line indicated that despite the lack of resources in Jordan, these young men and women “still have good education”, which helps to train them in digital transformation, health, and entrepreneurship to be able to start businesses and contribute to society.