My name is Rawan Shawabka, I am a resident of Madaba. After I finished school, I couldn't complete my studies, and my desire to become an agent of change in my community pushed me to be a volunteer. I started my journey with a community-based youth institution. Volunteering made me realize that the starting point should be myself. That I needed to challenge my circumstances by my empowering myself. Volunteering made me believe that change starts with a first step. Therefore, together with the great help of other young women and men in a Madaba, we have established an association called ‘Madaba in the eyes of its youth’ to work towards the change we want to see in our community, especially in social issues. I have worked on several projects through the organization, and I became an ambassador for the World Food Organization. My main concern was always focused on the potential opportunities that can be done in my district. Why? Because the nature of Madaba is stunning; it has a beautiful valley and forest. Areal economic opportunity and all that we need to do is to bring attention to it. This is exactly what had motivated me to start the initiative.

Where does the problem lie: the beautiful places are not accessible due to the unpaved road, which makes it very difficult for us and tourists to reach them. This prevents us from enjoying nature, and deprives us from potential investment opportunities.

 

‘Road’ is an initiative aimed to mobilize the community in order to push decision-makers to construct a road that connects the forest areas, in the areas of Lib and Mlih, affiliated to Thibian, Madaba district.

 

To fulfil the need of our local community, we met with different stakeholders and got their approval. We knocked several doors until we reached the municipality and the director of the agriculture department and the chief of justice and youth shadow council, together with several council members. This experience increased our knowledge of who is responsible for what! As well as the available possibilities.

 

At the end we learned that the construction of the needed road is under the Ministry of Agriculture (Forest Directorate). Thus, we started our campaign by using media and all social media tools, and the local community was part of all the process.

We continued our work with the municipality, which supported our rights and demand of owning or renting a land for 10 years to transform it into a park. The municipality contacted the Ministry of Municipalities, the Prime Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture for this purpose. From our side, we will continue to follow up on this until the park is established. We also learned about a grant provided by the Hashemite Royal Court with a value of 50 thousand dinars to the municipality of Lab and Mlih to establish an amusement park that serves the local community.

 

During this journey, my colleagues and I have learned a lot as our social responsibility enhanced, and our ability to express and communicate with different groups has significantly increased. In addition, we have gained the community’s trust, and even our own confidence as a team has enhanced. Our community believes that they can speak to us about any issue they feel they need support for.

We will continue our work until the land is allocated from the Ministry of Agriculture and the road construction is achieved.