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AMMAN — Caritas Poland is focusing on supporting Syrian children with disabilities in the Kingdom, with the intention of extending its project for a third year, according to a representative of the international organisation in Jordan.

Rafal Chibowski, coordinator of Caritas international projects, said the organisation launched its mission to help Syrian children in 2012 and is covering the fields that are not thoroughly covered by other humanitarian agencies.

“Most of the organisations focus on humanitarian assistance, providing refugees with food, clothes and official education. Thus we decided to have a different type of assistance,” Chibowski said, adding that this assistance includes providing Syrian children and their families who live among host communities with informal education.

“We fulfil the agenda that comes from the Jordanian government and UNICEF, and focus on teaching languages and art classes,” he told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.

Muhammad, a father of two Syrian children who attend Caritas classes said the art lessons helped them open up.

“Children were drawing things which normally they would not talk about. At the beginning the most frequently occurring pictures were very traumatic, full of human bodies, guns and burned houses. After few months my children started drawing pictures full of colours,” the refugee from Daraa said in an e-mailed statement.

“Classes have a therapeutic value [for them],” he added.

In the first year of the project, “we were organising evening classes for 200 Syrian children in Mafraq and Zarqa governorates” between the ages of five and 15, Chibowski said.

In addition, Caritas provided training on life skills (cooking and computer classes) for 150 men and women aged between 15 and 35.

After conducting an evaluation of its programmes, in 2013 Caritas decided to extend the project to include 600 beneficiaries in Karak, Madaba, Amman, Zarqa, Mafraq and Irbid.

The organisation also held events in each city for one month, offering artistic activities and theatre classes, Chibowski said.

Moreover, Caritas has allocated $1 million to implement projects for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and those internally displaced in Syria,

In Jordan, the third phase of the project will focus on the education of children with disabilities.

“If we manage to receive the funds we asked for, we will start in April or May,” Chibowski said, adding that there is a lack of support for children with disabilities. “So we started working with 32 children with disabilities, providing them with physical therapy, [and raising] awareness [among] parents.”

Caritas Poland is a member of Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Europe, and actively collaborates with members on overseas emergency and developmental programmes, according to the organisation’s website.

Established in 2004, it is part of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate.

AMMAN — Families of Jordanian prisoners in Israel are scheduled to visit their jailed relatives on February 27, activists said on Thursday.

Fadi Farah, spokesperson of the National Committee for Prisoners in Israel, told The Jordan Times that the Foreign Ministry has officially notified families of 16 out of 24 Jordanian prisoners in Israel about the date of the arranged visits.

“We have requested that the families of the remaining eight prisoners be allowed to visit their jailed relatives, but the Foreign Ministry has not yet provided any response,” Farah said.

The other eight prisoners, he added, are Hani Khamaiseh, Nasser Daraghmeh, Raafat Esous, Riyadh Saleh, Ahmad Khreis, Mohammad Fuqahaa, Ayman Eladam and Thamer Elburq

He added that Abdullah Barghouthi, who is serving 67 life sentences, is among the prisoners allowed family visits.

As requested by the Israeli side, only three family members will be allowed to visit each prisoner, who will speak to them for no more than 90 minutes through thick glass.

Officials at the Foreign Ministry were not available for comment.

In previous remarks to The Jordan Times, Shireen Nafe, a member of the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners in Israel, Fedaa, said that five of the Jordanian prisoners in Israel, who had been on a hunger strike demanded better visitation arrangements, including allowing five family members to visit regularly and speak to them face-to-face for at least four hours, as one of the conditions to end their strike.

The five prisoners — Barghouthi, Alaa Hammad, Hamzeh Dabbas, Mohammad Rimawi and Muneer Merei — began a hunger strike on May 2, 2013. Four of them ended the strike after 201 days when Israeli prison authorities offered to meet some of their demands, but Hammad pressed on with his strike in hopes of obtaining his freedom.

In December last year, Hammad “suspended” his hunger strike for four days, pending a positive response to his demands.

Hammad, who is serving a 12-year sentence, requested that six of his relatives in Jerusalem and his wife in Jordan be allowed to visit him in Eshel prison and that laser eye surgery be arranged for him.

But the prisoner later resumed his hunger strike after his demands were not fully met, according to Fedaa.

Nafe said that freed Jordanian prisoner Asmaa Hamed, however, was not allowed to visit her Palestinian husband Ibrahim Hamed, who is serving 54 life sentences.

A total of 125 Jordanians are held in Israeli jails, according to Palestinian Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe.

DEAD SEA — The government should not be the sole entity responsible for creating jobs in the Kingdom, the Jordan Enterprise Development Cooperation (JEDCO) said on Thursday.

“The government cannot, and should not, be the body responsible for generating jobs; it is the responsibility of the private sector,” JEDCO CEO Yarub Qudah said, noting that the Kingdom has the world’s highest percentage of public sector jobs compared to the population.

“It’s all about creating jobs,” he added at the opening session of a two-day conference entitled “Private Sector Led-Growth: promoting entrepreneurship, MSME development and job creation in Jordan”.

Organised by JEDCO in cooperation with the “Mubadara” parliamentary initiative, the event sheds light on the role of the private sector in backing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).

With small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) representing nearly 97 per cent of the total private sector businesses, Qudah called for coming up with one applicable national strategy that identifies funding and coordinating entities.

The conference is providing an opportunity for representatives of the public and private sectors, the EU and international organisations working in the area of financing and development to discuss best practices to promote entrepreneurship and present a draft on the national strategy and regulations governing SMEs.

MP Mustafa Hamarneh, the leader of “Mubadara”, said small businesses are the only means through which Jordan can salvage its troubled economy, and yet the government is “punishing successful private enterprises with taxes”.

Hamarneh stressed the need for the government to protect the middle class, not by creating more public posts, but by facilitating the creation of sustainable private sector jobs.

In his address on behalf of Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, Industry and Trade Minister Hatem Halawani underlined the need for a “modern” law that covers the needs of economic ventures in all their stages and which serves their interests.

Halawani noted that problems related to poverty and unemployment should be addressed in cooperation between the public and private sectors and civil society organisations.

Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh agreed, stressing the need to extend loans to SMEs after training beneficiaries in order to ensure the success of their schemes instead of further burdening the economy.

Meanwhile, EU Ambassador to Jordan Joanna Wronecka noted that the Kingdom needs a stronger and more dynamic private sector that is able to provide innovative ideas, citing EU support to develop SMEs in the country.

“There is a current gap between education outcomes and market needs, and this poses a threat to Jordan,” Wronecka said, adding that a plan is in the pipeline now to develop human resources and match their abilities with those in demand in cooperation with the EU.

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Thursday attended several sessions at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2014, which is taking place in Davos, Switzerland.

As the only Arab member on the WEF foundation board, on Friday Queen Rania will participate in the annual board meeting, which outlines strategies and work plans for the upcoming year, according to a statement issued by her office.

Alongside more than 2,500 participants, including heads of governments, business leaders and economic experts, Queen Rania attended several sessions that focused on education, development and entrepreneurship.

Her Majesty also met with representatives of different international educational organisations that are utilising technology to improve the learning process.

Under the theme “Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business”, the January 22-25meeting is focusing on a number of global challenges that the world is facing today.

Topics including economic recovery, overcoming crises and how to address various growing challenges, such as high rates of unemployment and inequality.

Her Majesty, who also serves as a board member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders (YGL), will attend an YGL board meeting which will be held on the sidelines of WEF 2014 on Friday.

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday held talks with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that focused on bilateral ties and regional developments, especially the peace process and the situation in Syria.

During the meeting, which was attended by Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, the King stressed the need to improve the cooperation agreements signed between the two countries to boost bilateral relations, voicing appreciation for Canada’s support to Jordan, especially in the field of development and youth empowerment, according to a Royal Court statement.

His Majesty also underlined the secure and stable investment environment in Jordan.

He called on Canadian investors to utilise the Kingdom’s investment incentives and its strategic location as a gateway to regional markets, the statement said.

On the peace process, the King reiterated that the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital on the basis of the two-state solution lies at the heart of the Kingdom’s strategic interests.

On Syria, the King renewed Jordan’s unaltered stance that calls for a comprehensive political solution to the Syrian crisis that can end the suffering of the Syrian people and safeguard the territorial unity of their country, warning at the same time of the consequences of extremism, violence and terrorism on the entire region, the Royal Court said.

The King also tackled Jordan’s increasing burdens resulting from hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees, expressing appreciation for the Canadian assistance to the Kingdom in this regard.

For his part, Harper expressed his country’s keenness on maintaining coordination and consultation with Jordan, stressing at the same time that Jordan’s development endeavours and reform process represent a model of success in the Middle East region.

Harper also briefed His Majesty on the outcomes of his visits to the Palestinian territories and Israel, commending the King’s efforts towards peace and stability in the region.

In his welcome remarks, the King commended the deeply rooted Jordanian-Canadian ties, expressing hopes that the free trade agreement (FTA) signed between the two countries would be fully utilised with the help of businesspeople from the two countries, the statement said.

The discussions were attended by Royal Court Chief Fayez Tarawneh, King’s Office Director Imad Fakhoury, and senior officials and diplomats from both sides.

Ensour also held separate talks with Harper that also focused on means to bolster bilateral ties as well as regional developments.