Global Platform Jordan Newsletter June 2014

WHAT IS HAPPENING AT GLOBAL PLATFORM JORDAN? June 2014

Training Skills in Engaging Youth Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is one of ActionAid’s partner organizations. Together with Global Platform Jordan they provided Local

Governance Program (LGP) core partners with a training called Creative Leadership and Participatory Work in June.

The participants were employees of the ministries and municipalities involved in the LGP in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the training focused on developing their skills in working with youth in this area.

The objectives of the training were to increase the LGP partners’ skills and knowledge in order to motivate and engage young people to become active citizens for social change. In addition, the training aimed at increasing their facilitation and moderation skills by using creative methodologies.

Abdelrahman Al Baroudi is one of the Platform’s trainers, and he describes the training as very fruitful. “As trainers, we felt that the objectives were met and that the

participants’ learning experience was rich”, he says. “We felt a change in their attitude towards the view on youth, and they were very open to the new training methods.”

In fact, the participants used the new methods in their own presentations and role plays, and they even showed a great will to apply them in their work.

We wish them all the best for their future work in Palestine.

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Campaigning For Victims’ Rights Article 308 is a Jordanian law that protects rapists at the cost of the victims’ rights. As absurd as it may sound, the law entails a way for the rapist to escape penalty: he simply needs to marry his victim! The victim will then lose all legal rights to financial and legal compensation. Many rape victims are actually forced into this kind of marriage, and Article 308 is a concern to human rights activists.

For more than three weeks, Global Platform Jordan carried out a training course called Campaigning for Change. The final project was a campaign against Article 308.

The 14 participants worked on planning their own campaigns while participating in a series of workshops conducted by Platform trainers. Jonathan Bunch was one of the trainers. ”The aim of the training was to give the participants the tools,

knowledge, and confidence to carry out advocacy campaigns”, he explains.

To participant Tarek al Salem, knowledge, skills, and team-work were the keywords for his experience at the Campaigning for Change training. ”The most useful part was

learning how to do proper research and how to do a proper campaign”, he says.

Abdallah Hawili agrees, and adds the importance of being encouraged to critical thinking and meeting new people with different ideas. The training course practical

faced

technical

challenges

but

and both

participants and trainers managed to keep up the good spirit.

To the Campaigning Team it was essential to highlight the issues of

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Article 308 and to make a call to legislators to abolish the law. Furthermore, the Team raised a demand for establishing a support system to help the victims learn about the alternatives to marrying their rapist. They made a Facebook page and a video that quickly received a lot of views on YouTube.

Go to https://www.facebook.com/stop308violations to like the page and the video and join the cause!

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Global Platform Jordan in Oman The First International Nursing Students Conference was hosted in Muscat by the Oman Nursing Institute in June. The goal of this global conference was to build up an international network of nurses for sharing knowledge and experiences.

Trainer Sarah Sweilem represented Global Platform Jordan on the last day of the conference. Here she conducted an interactive workshop with no less than a 100 participants on the subject of being change makers, leaders, and social entrepreneurs.

"When I first arrived at the conference center, I saw all the people, and I got really nervous", she says. "I started talking and the room was so silent, but in a profound way. The participants wanted to hear the talk. They wanted to discuss the issues of health care in Oman."

The themes of the conference revolved around global health and leadership. The participants were nursing students from all over the world: Oman, Bahrain, India, Jordan, Japan, Iran, and the USA. One part of Sarah's role as a presenter was to motivate, inspire, and encourage the listeners, and she was surprised to see how well her workshop went: "The participants

were really engaged during the talk, many people were even tweeting quotes, which I thought was really funny", she says. "They wanted my advice about different activities and organizations. It was great to see that there is an interest and I was really flattered." In her opinion, the participants were already aware of their own ability to do something; they just needed guidance in order to know how to get started.

Sarah feels that the presentation and the workshop went really well. "The beautiful

thing about the work that we do at the Platform is that it's a snowball effect. These

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people are going to take what they learned back to their universities and jobs and then share it with people" she says, reflecting on her presentation; "Through the sharing of experiences, the work of the Global Platform ends up touching more than just the 100 people who attended my workshop."

The Platform was happy to be asked to join such a conference, and we hope to be able to participate in similar and other events in the future.

Ramadan Kareem!

This year, the Ramadan runs from the end of June and until the end of July. At Global Platform Jordan, several staff members fast during this time and many of our volunteers, partners, and participants do as well.

Happy Ramadan to every single one, we hope that you will enjoy this time with your family and friends!

July is one of the hottest months in Jordan, and the sky high temperatures suggest a change in work mode. June was crazy busy with no less than three trainings going on at the Platform, trainers attending courses in Denmark and participating in conferences in Oman, so we believe that it is okay for us to slow down a bit during July.

However, this certainly does not mean no work at all: the Global Citizen Summer

Course will run three weeks from late July; the preparations for the Governance: Youth Mobilization for Global Justice training in August are currently being made, and we both have trainers travelling to Palestine to conduct a training, and others leaving to Denmark to participate in a Training of Trainers. July leaves room for developing our training courses and manuals so that we can meet our partners’ expectations and inquiries, and overall become better at doing what we do best!

The Platform Newsletter takes a summer break, but we will return in September.

Until then: Ramadan Kareem and have a great summer!

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UPCOMING TRAININGS AND EVENTS 12th-25th July:

Training of Trainers Palestine

21st of July-13th of August:

Global Citizen Summer Course

28th of August – 19th of September:

Governance: Youth Mobilization for Global Justice

LET’S COOPERATE!

Global Platform Jordan is one of ActionAid’s training hubs for empowerment and activism. We provide innovative and empowering trainings for young individuals, organisations and youth groups who wish to take positive actions in their societies.

You are always welcome to contact us; email: globalplatformjordan@ms.dk

www.globalplatforms.org/jordan www.facebook.com/globalplatformjordan www.youtube.com/globalplatforms

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