Local

AMMAN — UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday met with several women from the Jerash business community, who implemented home based production projects in the northern Jordanian city.

A British embassy spokesperson said that the meeting, which took place at the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature’s Wild Jordan Centre in Amman, focused on projects that seeks to empower women and support their abilities to cope with family burdens, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The spokesperson added that May expressed her country’s keenness to continue supporting efforts aimed at empowering women and guaranteeing their pivotal role in society, noting that the UK has offered £2.5 million to the women empowerment programme in Jordan.

Jerash Mayor Ali Gogazeh voiced his appreciation of the British government that cooperated with the Arab women project fund in implementing several projects and presenting financial and in-kind assistance, benefiting a total of 80 women.

The Arab women project fund, which was launched in 2015, aims at empowering 150,000 Arab women in Jordan, Egypt and Palestine through providing them with economic opportunities to increase their contributions to the economy and the labour market. 

The fund, which will continue receiving financing of some £10 million from the UK ministry of international development, targets women entrepreneurs and focuses on enabling them to come up with new services and products. 

AMMAN — A new version of the Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities (MEGA) Jordan is under development to serve as a user-friendly web-based geospatial information system on the country’s archaeological and heritage sites, according to a senior government official.

The new version, called “Arches Jordan”, will provide researchers and the public with coordinates and data on all of Jordan’s registered archaeological sites, buildings, structures, landscapes and heritage ensembles or districts, the official said.

“The Department of Antiquities [DoA] and Getty Conservation Institute [GCI] are now in the process of developing Arches Jordan which will be available as a bilingual system,” DoA Director General Monther Jamhawi said.

Jamhawi underlined that the new system will share with the public the history of the country’s registered archaeological and heritage sites in terms of dates of discovery, research and excavations on the site, among other data. 

Arches Jordan will be the third phase of MEGA Jordan, according to Jamhawi.

Launched in 2011, MEGA Jordan is a web-based Geographic Information System that documents and protects the Kingdom’s archaeological sites by enabling decision makers at the municipal, governorate and national levels to coordinate and reduce the potential impact of modern developments on the remnants of the Kingdom.

MEGA Jordan is a joint initiative by the GCI, the DoA and the World Monuments Fund (WMF).

Arches Jordan project’s website indicated that, during the development of the MEGA system, the GCI and WMF received many inquiries from heritage organisations around the world interested in using MEGA.

“This interest led the GCI and WMF to develop a user-fr Jerash Mayor Ali Gogazeh voiced his appreciation of the British government iendly, low-cost, web-based geospatial information system for the international heritage field, designed to help the inventory and management of all types of immovable heritage, including archaeological sites, buildings, structures, landscapes, and heritage ensembles or districts,” according to Arches Jordan project’s website. 

Jamhawi said that the system provides data on Jordan’s 27,000-28,000 registered archaeological sites, noting that there are some 100,000 documented archaeological sites across the country.

AMMAN — Sami Hourani is a young Jordanian entrepreneur who turned his back on a lucrative job in robotic surgery to establish a youth educational and training platform. 

A motivated and proactive young man, he strives to make a difference in a country where youth unemployment and exclusion have become a major concern for policy-makers, a concern echoed across the whole region.

The prevailing sense of loss of hope among youth in region served as an inspiration for the creation of the NET-Med Youth programme, a project focused on young beneficiaries.

Hourani is one of many Jordanians who benefited from this three-year project which provided him with training and day-to-day guidance, helping him to take his business to a level capable of competing in a competitive market.

NET-MED Youth is a joint EU-UNESCO response to the issues of high unemployment and low representation in public and political spheres, disinterest in civic engagement, exclusion from mainstream media and economic marginalisation, according to Dareen Abu Lail, an associate project officer with the project.

“The NET-Med Youth project has done great work with local assets, developing them according to local needs. It is clearly a unique project with a substantial added-value for he country,” Abu Lail said.

EU partners in the project believe youth in the region have great potential, but need guidance and training to realise their goals, and that is precisely what the project seeks to achieve: empowering youth to help them engage in the creation and implementation of national policies on education and employment that focus on their rights, responsibilities and potential.

Net-Med Youth: helping young people to help themselves

Having completed his studies in robotic surgery at Stanford University, Hourani had the world at his feet. But, instead of opting for a comfortable life in the US, he took a different path and chose to make use of the support he received to help his fellow youngsters, establishing a one-stop-shop for education and capacity building in Jordan.

His portal, For9a.com (meaning “Opportunity” in Arabic) has challenged the status quo whereby access to educational and skills development opportunities is very limited. He has worked to create awareness and promote the practicality of internships as a way of giving new graduates a chance to enter the labour market.

“We wanted to break all these cycles of cronyism and lack of access to education. So we said that we were going to use cyberspace and social media to reach more young people freely and equally,” Hourani explained.

Launched in 2011 in the midst of the political upheaval fuelled by youth frustration, For9a.com seeks to resolve part of the problem by providing a link between educational facilities, vocational training centres, companies and NGOs, and eligible and motivated young talent.

NET-MED Youth cooperates with several partners in the Kingdom to implement various programmes in three focus areas: youth public policies, youth and media, youth and employment.

One of these is the Luminous Media project, the first “Creative Media Incubator” in the region, where aspiring young entrepreneurs are provided with a space to start a business and enter the business environment. 

Wejoud Al Naboulsi, the 24-year-old managing director of the 3D printing company “Geo Clone”, is an example of how ambitious young women have learnt to conquer the business world with the help of the Luminous Media project.

Sitting behind her 3D printing machine next to a shelf filled with 3D objects, which bear testimony to her creativity and ambition, Al Naboulsi assembles the pieces as she prepares for her next production. 

After a year of endless paperwork and red tape, she managed to set up her business, find clients and start operating from a studio in the Luminous Media group, a private sector media company that trains students on a variety of media related projects.

The woman took several training courses on preparing feasibility studies and business strategy planning, and was offered a small studio at the Luminous Academy to work from, as well as guidance throughout the initial stages of her project.

“The space given to me is a godsend. I used to work from home, but now I have an office where I can meet clients, show them my work and dream about expanding my outreach,” she said.

“The programme has changed me greatly. I used to find it hard to deal with the public, or pitch for financial support, but now I have gained experience and self-confidence. I managed to overcome the wall of fear,” Naboulsi added.

Both Hourani and Naboulsi said they now feel that they have a social responsibility to pass on their experience and knowledge to other young men and women who aspire to success and inclusion in their societies.

EU Neighbours South is part of European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI). EU Neighbours South contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

AMMAN —  Minister of Social Development Hala Lattouf last week stressed the need to further strengthen women’s role in the Mediterranean by uniting efforts among all parties to ensure the proper implementation of recommendations that favour women’s empowerment and equality. 

“Women’s equality with men in all forms of life is basic human rights and is an important condition to achieve sustainable development,” Lattouf said on Wednesday.

Lattouf’s remarks came during the 4th the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) ministerial conference on “Strengthening the Role of Women in Society” that took place on November 27 in Cairo. The meeting gathered ministers and representatives of ministries from the 43 member countries of the UfM. 

The ministerial conference, which was chaired by Lattouf in the presence of the UfM Secretary General, Fathallah Sijilmassi, was hosted by Egypt represented by the president of the National Council for Women, Maya Morsy.

The participants adopted a ministerial declaration with proposed actions and measures in four priority areas including raising women’s participation in public life and decision-making; improving women’s economic participation; combating all forms of violence against females; and eliminating gender stereotypes.

Last week, the Euromed Feminist Initiative organised the Euro-Med Women’s Right Civil Society Conference in Cairo, which saw the participation of 130 representatives from 107 women’s rights and human rights organisations and networks, as well as gender experts, academia and media from 26 countries, who worked to prepare recommendations for the UfM meeting. 

The civil society participants built on the achievements of the Gender Regional Platform policy dialogue, which aimed to foster, widen and consolidate the sustainable regional dialogue on gender equality with stakeholders.   

 Executive Director of Euromed Feminist Initiative Boriana Jonsson and Co-President of Euromed Feminist Initiative Leila Al Ali presented the Civil Society Declaration to the Ministers during their ministerial meeting on November 27.

Some of the declaration points included calls for the absolute need to ensure independence and freedom of expression, movement and action, as well as funding of the civil society, which particularly enables the women’s rights organiations’ capacity to play their leading role in reshaping society and contribute to the fight against extremism. 

Another point focused on the need to develop and implement comprehensive gender equality laws following the examples of most advanced countries in the matter, to address multi-layered structural inequalities, accompanied by means and resources required to transfer texts into concrete actions leading to the improvement of women’s lives. 

The governments also urged for undertaking political solutions to existing conflicts, in a manner that favours an environment conducive to democracy and development in the Euro-Med region.

The declaration stressed the urgent need to initiate a regional peace process geared towards finding political solutions to all the conflicts in the region and called for finding ways to end the occupation of Palestine, enabling the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

It also called for organising structural access of women’s groups and women’s rights defenders to formal peace negotiations in the region, so that issues related to equal citizenship and gender equality are included in all peace and transitional processes from their inception. 

“The Gender Regional Platform will remain the roadmap for the women’s rights organisations to continue their independent dialogue with the decision makers in order to contribute to improving of the status of women’s rights in the region,” Jonsson said.

“We shall follow up with the decision makers on the implementation of the recommendations outlined in the declaration and will issue an independent report before the next Ministerial Conference,” Jonsson told The Jordan Times. 

Most importantly, Jonsson added, these recommendations remain a tool in the hands of the civil society, together with other international women’s rights mechanism “to continue our work towards gender equality and women’s rights in the whole region”. 

The Euromed Feminist Initiative has followed the UfM Ministerial Process on women’s rights since its first ministerial conference in 2016 in Istanbul, and has since then used the ministerial conclusions as a major regional tool for mobilising the civil society, supporting the accumulation of political will for the promotion and implementation of women’s rights and gender equality across the Euro-Med Region.  

To this end, Euromed Feminist Initiative launched a policy dialogue in 2015, led by women’s rights CSOs that brought together over 600 representatives from women’s rights CSOs, CBOs, gender experts, academics and researchers with decision makers and legislators, supported by the European Union, according to the initiative website.

The outcome of this national and regional dialogue process was the Gender Regional Platform which formulated concrete policy recommendations to the 4th UfM ministerial meeting which were taken into consideration in the UfM ministerial declaration.  

AMMAN — “I would like to give hope for those patients who have the potential to heal and provide them with the financial support through this initiative,” said Ola Yassin, one of the members of a team scheduled to climb Mount Elbrus in a new adventure headed by Jordanian champion Mostafa Salameh.

Together with 11 others, Yassin will join the expedition that was officially announced on Wednesday by HRH Princess Ghida Talal, Chairperson of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF) and Centre (KHCC).

The initiative, titled “From the Lowest Point to the Highest Point Against Cancer" aims at raising $1 million to support cancer patients. 

“All the money will come from companies sponsoring the team and the crowdfunding campaign run through the website,” Salameh told The Jordan Times. 

“I think it is very important, as a woman and a mother, to participate in such initiatives to teach our kids volunteering work and the value of giving,” Wahba Lamber, another member of the climbing team, said.

For Lamber, cancer is a national cause. “There is no house in Jordan where cancer has not stricken family members. We have loved ones who passed away and others that are still fighting their battle against this disease,” Lamber said, adding "if we can make a difference and help them fight and overcome this disease, we should". 

On August 2018, Salameh and a team of 12 people will climb Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, following two previous expeditions to Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro. 

“The team members have been chosen very carefully. They are people who have been trained to climb a mountain before,” Salameh indicated. 

The team is following a careful preparation, training regularly during the week, since the conditions they will experience during the trip will be hard due to weather conditions and steepness. 

 “The mental factor is the most important,” Lamber said, voicing her trust that remembering that they are undertaking this adventure for a good cause will give them the strength needed, inspired by the cancer survivors and patients that they are representing. 

“It is also very important to have Salameh, a specialist, with us,” Lamber noted. 

During the launching event, Princess Ghida said: "We are proud to partner again with the 'From the Lowest Point to the Highest Point against Cancer' initiative led by the Jordanian adventurer and champion Mostafa Salameh. This expedition will support cancer patients at KHCC through the donations that will be raised by the initiative's great team." 

She also announced another climbing initiative called “Seven Peaks”, which will see a team of students from the International School of Choueifat climb the highest peak of the Arab world, the Toukbal Summit in Morocco in 2018. 

The members of the "From the Lowest Point to the Highest Point against Cancer" initiative are: Khaled Al Tal, Helen Azizi, Hana Khoury, Hana Boushnak, Wahba Lamber, Ola Yassin, Marwa Al Sayabi, Ayser Al Batayneh, Dina Faidi, Rou’a Al Jarah, Maisa Al Shanar and Abeer Saiqali. 

AMMAN — "We make it fun and entertaining for our children to take care of other people," said Dina Saoudi, a mother of two boys taking part in the "My Jacket" campaign held at the Landmark Hotel on Thursday.

Organised by the local organisation "Little Volunteers", in collaboration with Playground, Kids Party Plus and Landmark Hotel, which supported the event voluntarily, the day saw the participation of over 150 kids, including 75 less fortunate children from a school in Jabal Amman.

"When you look at these kids playing and laughing, there is no way to tell which ones came from the underprivileged school. They are all mixed together and having fun without distinction," noted Layla Al Qasim, head of strategic engagement and sustainability projects at Landmark.

The 2nd edition of the campaign, which aims to raise funds to buy jackets for children in need, offers kids the opportunity to interact with peers from vulnerable backgrounds, in a day filled with music, dance, arts and crafts and magic show.

Separated into five groups of 20 children each, the participants were offered a number of fun activities by volunteers, who took care of them, while their parents exchanged and discussed the projects of "Little Volunteers".

"We have six different stations, where the kids stay for 15 minutes before rotating to the next. There is the archery booth, the young Rembrandts, the one where they have to race with a spoon and a ping pong ball without dropping it, the pulling a rope activity, etc," Qasim told The Jordan Times at the event.

"All those activities are done in a group setting so that all kids have fun together and make new friends," she said, noting that her own six-year-old daughter Raya already came up to her telling that she has several new friends.

"We encourage the exchange between children, because this is how they learn the importance of sharing and being kind to each other," said Zeina Asfour, the founder of Little Volunteers, who stressed that she only came up with the idea of the event, while that all the work has been done in cooperation with the volunteers.

"Everyone loves to do good, people just don’t know where to turn to. When I started the jacket campaign, I had a huge turnout of people who wanted to help and volunteer," she recalled.

This lack of "places to turn to" when wanting to volunteer is what pushed this single mother of two to start "Little Volunteers" in 2014, after she realised the lack of initiatives available for people willing to engage their young kids in volunteerism.

"I wanted to instill those values of solidarity in my three-year-old, but the only projects available were in private schools and targeted teens or older kids," Asfour remembered, adding that "so, I gathered 30 other kids for her not to feel alone and I started our initiative".

Saoudi and Qasim were some of the first mums having their children "test" the project with Asfour, and they have been part of every single activity since. 

"I do not want to guilt my daughter into being kind to others. I want her to have fun while taking care of her peers, so she can appreciate the value of kindness," Saoudi said, echoing Asfour's idea that "children should not be positioned as 'victims' or 'underpvileged' while others are seen as 'heros' or 'givers'. Instead, they should all be together and learn to be responsible for themselves, their peers, and society as a whole".

Embodying that idea, one of the activities was the "Jar Sharing", where each child decorated a jar named after them and wrote a kind note placed inside, which they then exchanged with one of their new friend, regardless of their background.

All proceeds collected from the entrance fee will go to buying winter jackets, which will be distributed to less fortunate children ahead of the cold season, Asfour concluded. 

AMMAN — The government on Thursday decided to raise the prices of gasoline, kerosene and diesel between 3.7 to 4.17 per cent, while maintaining the price of gas cylinders unchanged for December.

The government’s decision, which went into effect on December 1, was taken in accordance with recommendations by the Energy Ministry's Fuel Pricing Committee, which convened on Thursday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Under the decision, kerosene and diesel will be sold at JD0.54 per litre, up from JD0.52, marking a 3.7 per cent increase.

The cost of one litre of unleaded 90-octane gasoline will go up by 4.17 per cent, to be sold at JD0.72, up from JD0.69, while a litre of unleaded 95-octane gasoline will sell for JD0.945, up from JD0.91, recording an increase of 3.7 per cent.

A government committee meets monthly to adjust fuel prices to correspond with changes in oil prices in the international market.

The committee noted that the price of gas cylinders will remain unchanged at JD7, despite a real-term increase to JD9.26.

Prices of oil derivatives in the local market are calculated based on international prices, with the addition of other costs such as shipment, handling and taxes.

The committee said that it referred to international oil prices, which showed that the cost of a barrel of crude Brent oil went up to $62.59 in November compared to $57.19 in October, Petra reported.

All derivatives are subject to a JD0.006 stamp fee, in addition to other fixed fees related to transport, storage and insurance.

AMMAN — The preatorium, a commander’s residence, in Humayma, 280km south of Amman, clearly demonstrates the luxury and the status the commander of the garrison enjoyed, according to a Canadian scholar.

“Only partly excavated, this complex was likely the largest residence at the site and was ornately decorated with lavish wall paintings and mosaics,” Craig Harvey, a PhD candidate from the University of Michigan, said in an e-mail interview with The Jordan Times.

Furthermore, the objects discovered through research also point to a luxurious lifestyle, the archaeologist continued, adding that this luxury extended to a diet of the commander, best exemplified by a large number of oyster shells found beside the praetorium.

“The oysters almost certainly came from Ayla [Aqaba]. The fact that oysters need to be extremely fresh suggests that they were transported express in amphora with sea water or wrapped in some wet cloth to keep them wet and alive,” Harvey explained.

Wall paintings inside the praetorium also indicate the posh lifestyle of the commander as they are similar to ones found in the region of Petra and “depict faux-marble veneering”, he stated.

“In fact, it is entirely possible that the Roman commander hired local painters for the praetorium,” Harvey elaborated.

Regarding the Roman military camp, the fort could have housed around 500 troops, the Canadian scholar estimated.

“Initially it was occupied by a detachment from Legio III Cyrenaica, and possibly a detachment from Legio VI Ferrata later in its life, both of which would have included soldiers from elsewhere in the empire,” Harvey underlined, noting that in the 4th century AD it is believed to have housed local mounted archers.

The military camp and other facilities had been supplied by the water from the mountains 27km away from the site via aqueduct.

“The water systems of Humayma have been thoroughly studied by Canadian archaeologist John P. Oleson from the University of Victoria, Canada. The large pool in the northwest corner of the fort would have provided the fort and the garrison with a secure source of water in the event of a siege,” Harvey said, adding that this water was also used to fill a large ornamental pool near the fort and to provide the garrison bathhouse with a constant flow of water as well. 

“Otherwise, much of the water used to sustain life in the settlement came from the Nabataean system of cisterns and water catchment systems that dot the site,” the archaeologist emphasised.

In addition to the Humayma project, which he has been on since 2008, Harvey is also a member of the Ayn Gharandal Archaeological project and was a member of the Petra North Ridge project for their last season. 

“It was purely chance that I came to Jordan for the first time in 2008, when I joined the Humayma project which is directed by M. Barbara Reeves, from Queen’s University, Canada,” he remembered.

“Once in Jordan, I fell in love with the country and the people and could not see myself working anywhere else. Plus, I am very fortunate in that the work at Humayma and my own research has been generously supported for many years by the American School of Oriental Research,” the scholar underlined.

“Currently, my focus has been on completing my dissertation at the University of Michigan, but I am also working on publishing my research from my work at Humayma and the other projects I am on. I expect to be back in Jordan next year and look forward to being back in the country, “Harvey said.

AMMAN —The government was scheduled to launch a website for registering to benefit from the financial support Thursday midnight, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The website will enable Jordanian families and individuals to apply for the programme.

The government stressed the importance of accuracy while filling in the information.

The website (www.da3mak.jo) will be operational as of December 1, 2017.

The government said that public sector, civil and military employees, retirees, social security retirees and beneficiaries of the National Aid Fund are excluded from registration as their information is already available.  

AMMAN —The Royal Naval Force on Thursday rescued four persons in Aqaba, who had been reported missing after they started rowing in Taba, Egypt, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The force found three people in the Jordanian waters and a fourth one in the Saudi Arabian waters.They were transferred to Prince Hashem Naval Base where they were reported to be in fair condition.