About the project

 

Within "Enhancement of Inclusive Education Strategies in ANHRE member NGOs" project which funded by IM- Swedish Development Partner. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the development of gender equality, rights based approach and inclusion policies, procedures, systems and programs of ANHRE network. ANHREs' citizenship toolkit is being piloted with specific target groups selected by the members.

 

Arab Network for Civic Education - ANHRE adopts inclusiveness and gender mainstreaming in its citizenship toolkit and pilots in at least 15 different contexts in the year of 2017. This comes in line with its new strategic plan 2017-2020. ANHRE identified 15 participants with various experiences and different background who will contribute to enrich the content of the workshop and develop the toolkit.

 

 

Arafat Awad, an ambitious 27 years old and youth activist, from Life Ambassadors Organisation, attended the  citizenship workshop for the first time of his life on this subject. Arafat used to be an active dynamic youth who tends in his organization to go directly to action and to the field work.

 

Citizenship, to him, was not more than having a nationality and being loyal to your country. As a participant in the citizenship workshop, Arafat is exposed to different terminologies such as gender, diversity, rights based approach, human rights, values, inclusion… etc. That means to Arafat a huge difference in his way of thinking and approach of work.

 

 

A workshop about democratic citizenship and implementing community-based initiative was conducted by Life Ambassadors Organisation, in Jordan. The target group was youth with different ethnical backgrounds.

 

Arafat piloted the citizenship toolkit by training youth university students, in Al- Zarqa governorate at the Chechens institution. A group of 14 youth, 8 males and 6 females, from different Jordanian tribes and Jordanian Chechens were gathered in September 8- 9, 2017. Since the Chechen community in Jordan, as ethnic Chechens living in Arab-majority country, has managed to maintain strict separation and a distinct Chechen identity within the society, Arafat aimed to include them in this training which focused in democratic citizenship where the identity and diversity are important issues that have to be discussed.

 

 

First step - ice breaker

 

The training started with an ice breaker; everyone got a balloon to write their names on and their expectations from the workshop.

The ice breaker was meant to avoid any possible tension that may arise during the workshop. Everyone was told to blow the balloons. The sound of the explosion made youth laugh and get them more relaxed, right after that, the youth were divided into two mixed groups to work in different exercises during the training and encourage exchange of ideas and experiences.

 

 

Youth feeling judged

 

The first topic that was discussed during the workshop was about the values of human rights. The seven values of human rights (from Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that are incorporated in the toolkit, were deeply discussed: cooperation, respect, fairness, inclusion, respect for diversity, responsibility and acceptance.

Everyone got to choose one of the values that they could share an experience associated to it. Some of the youth shared experiences associated to more than one value. In principle, the Chechen group feels that they are pre-judged based on their identity as Chechen; for example, how they should look like and how they should behave.

 

 

A voice to be heard

 

Many people in Jordan don't know about their rights and duties as citizens, neither do they know about their rights to participate in public and political life.  It seems youth do not know that they have a voice to be heard, that they can be decision makers and be a part of the society in a more active way. For instance, Arafat told the youth about their rights to take initiatives and how they can influence the politics in the country.

 

 

Results

 

It is not a common thing to gather Jordanians with Jordanian Chechens, and there are stereotypes about Chechens. Quotation said by Arafat: "My view of Chechens has been changed positively. I used to hear about them and meet them accidently, but I never work with them and have a face-to-face interaction".

 

Arafat also confirmed that when the workshop was finished, all participants felt they were one group and committed to implement community-based initiatives in Al- Zarqa together.

After a democratic vote, the group agreed to take an initiative concerning electronic crimes (Jaraem book). They developed a planforhow and when they are going to spread information, especially about how girls are exposed to harassment through the internet and social media. The youth aspiration is to be trained by the police officers for three days and then spread the word around schools in Al- Zarqa.

 

 

Arafat Awads' experience with ANHRE

 

ANHRE conducted a training workshop for 5 days to ensure gender and inclusive mainstreaming in its citizenship toolkit. The piloting for the toolkit was made by 15 main targeted members. Arafat Awad acknowledges that he learned many new things after the workshop with ANHRE.

“ANHRE’s citizenship toolkit is successful and I gained new experiences from the participants who have different backgrounds who come from Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt” Arafat Awad says.

 

 

Furthermore Arafat says “I learned more about citizenship and skills about having a dialogue, manage a group of people and time”. He added “I feel more confident about working with the citizenship toolkit so I am going to take more initiatives regarding gender and inclusive mainstreaming”.