Feminist research centre launches youth empowerment programme

AMMAN — The Feminist Integral Centre for Research and Innovation (FICRI) has recently launched its Fellowship Programme to empower the youth in Jordan.

“We believe that youth are the ones to make the real change for one’s economic empowerment in Jordan,” FICRI Project Manager Mayyada Abu Jaber told The Jordan Times.

To that end, “we felt we need to build the capacity of youth to truly engage in a feminist research entity to create a feminist economy,” Abu Jaber, who is also the founder and CEO JoWomenomics, added.

FICRI launched its first round of the Fellowship Programmes on March 16-17, 2021 and the second round on March 23-24 in partnership with Brookings Institutions in Washington DC, Abu Jaber said.

“Some 21 Fellows from different governorates —  namely Balqa, Jerash, Ajloun, Madaba and Amman were introduced to the concept of feminist economy, feminist critique, and methodologies and also learned about how to design and conduct a research for policy impact,” she noted.

Established in 2020, the FICRI is an independent nonpartisan regional think tank committed to holistic, integral and feminist approaches in research to tackling feminist realities in Jordan, according to Abu Jaber.

The centre, which is being funded by the embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, aims to establish a local talent pool of thought leaders and develop a system where policies enable an equitable environment through reviving the value of authentic knowledge, according to a statement provided by the organisers.

The FICRI vision is to “foster an economic and societal renewal” through a process of co-creation of knowledge to awaken integral consciousness and the embodiment of a feminist reality, the statement said.

“This is realised by engaging in an inquiry process that concentrates on illuminating the ‘inner world’ of one’s origins in order to create a feminist economy,” Abu Jaber added.

Abu Jaber pointed out that FICRI conducted an analysis to identify the inequalities and gender gap in the Jordanian social security and tax laws.

“We plan to hold circles in several communities in Jordan in order to gain the knowledge on how gender roles and dynamics have changed over the years and what is the Jordanians view and perspective of the social and economic protection,” Abu Jaber said.

The idea behind this exercise, she added, is “to understand the source of such discriminatory legislation in a holistic perspective where citizens are transformed into active participants to proposed changes in policies”.  

Through the knowledge gained, the fellows will participate in the feminist research and conduct community FICRI Circles to understand women has lived experiences and narrative regarding their roles in the public sphere and how Jordanian culture and history have highlighted such roles, according to the statement.

This will enable them to address the root causes of inequality in society, which is reflected in policies through engaging all stakeholders, and incorporating different perspectives into generating the solutions, the statement added.