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AMMAN — The EU Southern Neighbourhood Project last week launched “Shoot and Share”, a youth photo competition aimed at shedding light on EU-supported development in the Arab world.

Organised within the EU4Youth social media campaign, the online competition seeks to highlight examples of positive change stemming from the programmes and projects carried out by the European Union in the MENA region. 

“Through our work, we noticed that youth are often unaware of the variety of programmes and opportunities available to them through the EU; they often believe that the European Union is restricted to a political institution detached from their daily lives,” an EU official told The Jordan Times, adding, “With this competition, we seek to get them involved in knowing these projects better so they can ultimately benefit from our action in their local community.”

Young people between the ages of 18 and 25 years are asked to post a photo depicting a concrete change witnessed in their life or that of their community, along with a short description — no more than 50 words — in English, French or Arabic using the hashtag #EU4Youth. 

“By opening the contest to any topic covered by the EU, ranging from democracy to education and civil society or economic empowerment, we encourage the participants to show the rest of their communities how wide the EU cooperation with their country is,” the official stated, noting that the contest is open to youth from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.

“Through this contest, we want to engage Arab youth in shedding light on the positive impact EU projects have had on their personal life and their community,” the official continued, stressing the importance of involving direct beneficiaries of local programmes to better communicate about concrete development change.

Also, they highlighted, the localised communication campaign would help “democratise Arab youth’s access to both local and wider opportunities”, citing trainings, internships and cultural exchanges available for them both in their country and abroad.

Started on April 5, the call for submissions will be open until April 15, followed by a public vote by online users closing on April 23.

“Three winners will be selected for each participating country, based on the number of likes their submissions gathered on our social media. Winners will be awarded various prizes such as smartphones and tablets, which they will receive at their country’s EU delegation offices,” the official said, explaining that “the digital prizes are in line with our youth-targeted communication policy that is almost entirely done online these days”.

“Young people mostly communicate through digital platforms, so these prizes will help them stay connected to spread the message about those projects, and enhance their visibility to the rest of society,” the EU representative pointed out. 

Noting that the submissions coming from Northern African countries are significantly higher so far, the official encouraged people from Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon to take part in the contest. 

The competition is organised under the project "Open Neighbourhood: Networking for a Closer Partnership: Linking Citizens to the Neighbourhood" funded by the EU, an organisers' statement said.

AMMAN — HRH Princess Ghida Talal, chairperson of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation and King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC) and Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) Director General Abdulwahab Ahmad Al Bader on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding, under which the fund extends a donation to treat cancer patients at KHCC.

The fund extended donations for the third consecutive year to treat cancer patients, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Princess Ghida said that the fund’s support contributes to saving the lives of many patients who have no other institution to cover their treatment costs. She noted that these donations contributed to treating 74 patients so far, including 26 children. 

AMMAN — The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) on Wednesday organised a one-day football tournament at Sports City, under the directives of the German federal ministry of economic cooperation and development. 

Held on the sidelines of the ongoing Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Cup, the event gathered girls from various schools in Amman into ten teams, each representing one of the competing national squads at the AFC’s championship.

“It’s all about creating access to sports for girls and women, and what is already done here in Jordan by different institutions is a great step in that direction including global sport events like the Women’s Asian Cup, regular physical education [PE] classes, girls grassroots centres and clubs for different sports and extracurricular sport activities after school, among others," said Laura Stoltz, a junior adviser at GIZ.

Through this event, GIZ and local participants aimed to promote PE teaching techniques and social skills development. PE teachers were provided with informational brochures, training manuals and tools for practice by GIZ, she explained.

"The tournament does not focus on competition, but rather on the promotion of a healthy lifestyle through sports, and on ways to create access for girls and young women to sports," Stoltz noted, adding that it also helps raise awareness in society to enhance female participation in sports, making it more “normal” and acceptable.

Following the fun and interactive activities, the tournament concluded with a dramatic finale decided by the penalty shootouts. 

For 12-year-old Manal, the event was a good chance to break out of her routine and meet with like-minded peers. "I really enjoyed this competition, and I may start practicing football in a club with professional coaches," she told The Jordan Times at the event.

Girls are not worse than boys, she stressed as she exited the game.

One of the most remarkable players at the tournament was ten-year-old Sadin who, despite a smaller shape than some of her teammates, carried her school all the way to the final.

"We didn't have enough luck in the final, we missed many chances during regular time but, overall, it was a nice experience. It was a lot of fun and I'd really like to be a professional footballer like my idol Lucas Moura," she said.

In the future, GIZ plans to “conduct end of school year tournaments" in cooperation with Generation for Peace, Madrasati and other entities, carrying the same goal as this tournament to "promote sport for development and open access to sports to all children [boys and girls], according to Stolz, who underscored that such events are also crucial in teaching social and sportive skills, in addition to promoting healthy lifestyles.

AMMAN — A group of 23 students from Yarmouk University has launched a campaign to activate the tourism trail of Irbid's Mazar region, aiming to place the trail as a main attraction on the country's tourism map, a campaign member said on Wednesday.

Improving the trail will increase the number of foreign and local tourists and create jobs for the local community, said Ahmad Hazaimeh, a member of the campaign.

The process requires the rehabilitation of the historical Samad village, including its ancient houses, churches and caves, according to the campaigner, who noted that some of the houses can be renovated to become public facilities such as souvenir shops or restaurants.

The project also needs to renovate roads and add traffic signs to facilitate reaching the village, he continued.

Samad, 20 km west of Irbid, can also be used by archaeology colleges for training and exploration visits for their students, Hazaimeh suggested.   

The campaign's launching ceremony, held at Samad, was attended by Irbid Tourism Director Mashael Khasawneh, members of Irbid Governorate council's tourism committee, officials from Mazar Municipality and Samad local council, in addition to locals.

In her speech at the ceremony, Khasaweneh said: "Samad is one of Irbid's most important heritage landmarks for its rich history,” stressing keenness on supporting the campaign and working on improving the trail to attract more visitors to Mazar and Samad.

In addition to its Ottoman-era houses, the village of Samad consists of several ancient sites such a Byzantine church, a mosque, a Roman cistern and a number of caves and wells, according to the campaigners.

Samad's population is composed of Muslims and Christians, who have been living in harmony for centuries, sharing traditions and celebrating holidays together, the campaign members said.

AMMAN — The Central Traffic Department (CTD) on Wednesday announced that it will implement closures and detours on several roads due to the start of the 2018 Dead Sea ultra marathon at 6am on Friday.

Detours will be made on several streets on the Dead Sea region for short times according to the marathon stages, said a CTD statement, cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra

AMMAN — Motivated by the study of female agricultural labour, a Jordanian-Armenian social anthropologist started conducting research in Ghor Mazra, an area located at the southern tip of the Dead Sea.

While living in Irbid, Lucine Taminian used to see pickup trucks filled with women heading up north, she remembered. "I was curious: who are these women? Where are they going? When I learned that they were seasonal female labourers commuting daily to work in the Northern Ghor farms, I became interested in their stories," Taminian, who holds a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, noted.

With no experience in the field, she reached out to Seteney Shami, an anthropology professor at the Yarmouk University. From there, the two began researching the squatter area in Wadi Al Haddad in Amman.

According to Taminian, using anthropological methodology was "an eye opening experience", which pushed her to enroll in the anthropology Master’s programme at Yarmuk University.

"The programme included study trips to acquaint the students with the different Jordanian communities," she recalled, highlighting how, during a trip to the Southern Jordan Valley, the group stopped in Ghor Mazra to visit the Jordan Valley Project and the farms. 

The scholar began researching the impact of development on female agricultural labour, living for over four months in Ghor Mazraa. There, she documented the oral history of the local community, the changes in landownership and the rise of female labour following the implementation of the project.

Women’s working patterns have changed since the implementation of the Jordan Valley Project, Taminian explained. “It has become known that farming is now women’s work. Actively involved in farming, they work as wage labourers or sharecroppers, and run the family farm. They carry out all the farming tasks except for marketing, which is believed to be the men’s job," she continued, adding "hence the saying: 'labour is for women, the product is for men’".

She is currently involved in a number of research projects, including a project on social sciences in Iraq and a project on food production in the Southern Jordan Valley. "The Jordanian project is based on my earlier research studying the impacts of the food production restructuration on the small productive units, the majority of which involve the Ghawarneh [inhabitants of Ghor]," the anthropologist explained. 

She will also study the restructuring of the local economies by outlining the “culture economy” of Ghor Al Mazra with the aim of promoting it as a rural touristic site.  

"Culture economy entails the use of local cultural resources to improve the social and economic well-being of a rural area," the expert underlined.

"Differentiation among the Ghawarneh is mainly based on the landownership, and its size: there are the landless, the small land owners and the large land owners," Taminian said, noting that, in addition to the Ghawarneh, there are the absentee landlords and shopkeepers who live outside the area and only come to manage their farms or shops. 

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah, the Supreme Commander of the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF), on Wednesday visited the General Command of JAF, according to a Royal Court statement.

His Majesty was received by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat, Royal Jordanian Air Force Commander and JAF heads of staff. The King and Friehat discussed a number of issues related to the armed forces' operational, training and logistics fields.

AMMAN — Under the Patronage of HRH Princess Muna, patron for nursing and midwifery in the Eastern Mediterranean Region and president of the Jordan Nursing Council (JNC), the JNC and the World Health Organisation are scheduled to hold a health policy forum on April 17, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Wednesday.

Local, regional and global experts will participate in the event, which will mark JNC's celebration of Jordan's Nursing Day, Princess Muna's birthday on April 25 and World Health Day. The two-day forum will witness the launch of the national campaign "Nursing Now" and of the action plan for mental health and substance abuse in 2018-2021.

AMMAN — Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Tuesday said that there is no greater threat than the Israeli occupation and depriving Palestinians from their rights and an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In his remarks at the opening session of Fikr 16 conference in Dubai titled “Repercussions of Chaos and Challenges of Achieving Stability”, Safadi stressed that the Gulf countries are Jordan’s backyard in terms of security and the opposite is true.

At the conference, which was inaugurated under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, the minister reiterated Jordan’s rejection of external interference in Arab affairs.

He stressed the paramount importance of defending the legal and historic status of Jerusalem and its holy places from the Israeli attempts that threaten the Muslim and Christian identity of the holy city. 

“Jerusalem should be a glimmer of hope for peace,” he said, rather than an “ignition spark”, as it is holy for the followers of three monotheist religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Safadi also addressed several other issues including the crisis in Syria and Yemen, and the need to solve them politically, the need to enhance pan-Arab joint action and the fight against terrorism within a holistic approach.

AMMAN — Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Economic Affairs Jafar Hassan on Tuesday inaugurated the Joint Annual Meeting of the Arab Financial Institutions.

In addition to the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the financial institutions include the Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation, Arab Monetary Fund, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development.

The event, held on the shores of the Dead Sea, has attracted the participation of Arab ministers of finance and planning and representatives of central banks, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During a speech at the inauguration ceremony, Hassan said that the meeting constitutes an important opportunity for consultation, exchanging views, evaluating achievements and enhancing financial institutions’ roles in boosting economic integration and joint Arab action.  

The minister highlighted the important role of Arab funds and financial institutions in funding economic and social development programmes in the Arab world, expressing the government’s appreciation for these institutions’ continuous assistance to the Kingdom, mainly in supporting trade and reform plans.

He called for exerting more efforts to address the inadequacy of infrastructures in Arab countries, improve business environments, enhance inter-Arab trade and investment, and unify legislation, and fiscal and economic reform policies.

Slower economic activities and higher unemployment rates, especially among young people and women, along with low competitiveness of Arab economies form pressure factors that affect the living standards and welfare of Arab citizens, which, consequently, requires adopting policies that can increase economic productivity, boost competitiveness and develop the performance of human workforce, he stressed. 

The minister noted that Arab countries have been seeking to develop inter-Arab trade through several initiatives and joint Arab economic cooperation programmes, mainly the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, yet cooperation is still below expectation.

Hassan reaffirmed the important role that Arab financial institutions can play to support inter-Arab trade and investment, stimulate growth and provide financial and technical support for entrepreneurs and development projects in the region, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises.