The Target Program is one of FAWCO’s primary means to fulfill its mission as a United Nations accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Along with FAWCO's representatives who attend UN meetings, FAWCO’s Global Issues Teams also focus on issues related to women and children in FAWCO's priority areas: education, environment, health and human rights. The FAWCO Target Program demonstrates actionable investment by all members in these areas. Together we provide a cohesive illustration of FAWCO’s commitment to the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Last October in Let’s Get Schooled, we examined the 2016 GEM Report and how Education impacts all 17 of the UN SDGs. In this issue, we will look at how our Target Project, Hope Beyond Displacement, addresses the SDGs, with a specific focus on SDGs #4 and #5.
The 2016-2019 Target Program addresses Education: Empowering Women and Girls Through Knowledge and Skills. Our Target Project, Hope Beyond Displacement, focuses on these specific needs identified by urban refugee women and girls in Amman, Jordan:
- ensuring better educational support for their children
- accessing sources of income
- better managing the threat of violence in their families and
- learning and developing leadership and advocacy skills.
The project addresses these needs through vocational training, educational programs, and through tangible opportunities for advocacy and leadership. To ensure the sense of ownership and investment that will be integral for the longevity, sustainability, and success of the project, community members are involved at every stage.
Let’s look at the programs HBD is implementing and connect them to specific SDGs…
Girls Education
FACT: More than one-third of school-aged Syrian children registered with the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan (over 80,000 out of 226,000 children) were not in formal education during the last school year.
HBD’s budget includes $10,000 annually to send 100 girls to school each year. In addition, literacy and numeracy support is offered through after school programs at their community center, to help these girls catch up academically and succeed in school.
HBD includes a new pilot program: The Super Girls Program, an after school program designed to address refugee girls' particular needs and challenges. With a trauma-sensitive focus the Super Girls curriculum will promote lifelong learning and personal development through leadership, life skills, project-based learning, and technical computer training.
Vocational Training
FACT: Most refugees in Jordan are prohibited from working, resulting is extremely high rates of poverty - more than 86% of Syrian refugees live there in poverty!
HBD launched two new training programs this month, which will provide 180 women with job skills!
Sixty women will be trained as beauticians and will learn self-employment skills, providing them the ability access the informal economy by providing services for a fee within their community.
Another 120 women will receive technical skills through the International Computer Driving License Program. The ICDL is an internationally recognized qualification that enables people to certify their computer skills to an internationally recognized standard. Of these women, 45 will continue training for computer coding. We know how important these technical skills are in the world today. By offering these skills to women, we are opening doors for them which we can only begin to imagine.
Leadership and Advocacy
FACT: The trauma of displacement and poverty lead to loss of status and control over life choices. This results in a sense of hopelessness, lack of empowerment, and poor coping strategies which contribute to family violence.
CRP has been working to address violence in the home and women’s advocacy. They see the family unit as a solution because women don’t live in a vacuum, they have partners, husbands. Husbands who can either act to champion or diminish their spouses. And if women don’t know their rights they have little ability to advocate for themselves. CRP began holding classes to address these issues two years ago with a grant that is about to expire. With FAWCO support they are not only able to continue these programs but are able to expand them.
Last month, the Women’s Empowerment 101 and Gender-Based Violence Awareness and Prevention Training began in parallel: each group meets twice a week in groups of 20 for a 3-month period to discuss women’s rights, roles in society, gender attitudes and behaviors. There will be a total of eight course cycles resulting in the participation of 160 women and 160 men and youth.
After the first four cycles are complete, course graduates will be selected for leadership opportunities: 20 men and women will participate in Train the Trainer Workshops and will join the CRP training team! Another 70 men, women and youth will gain hands-on experience through the Leadership in Action program, where they will implement their own community based projects!
Each SDG has specific targets which address issues encompassing that particular goal.
Let’s highlight SDGs #4 and #5 since they address the core of our Target Focus and Target Issue.
SDG #4 - Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
- By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes
- By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education
- By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
- By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
- By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
- By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
- By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
- Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
- By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
- By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states
SDG #4: Hope Beyond Displacement addresses 7 out of 10 targets
SDG #5 - Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls
- End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
- Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
- Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
- Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
- Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decisionmaking in political, economic and public life
- Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences
- Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
- Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
- Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
SDG #5: Hope Beyond Displacement addresses 5 out of 9 targets
Follow these links to see how Hope Beyond Displacement addresses the targets in the other SDGs:
SDG #1 - End Poverty in all its forms everywhere (7 targets)
SDG #8 - Decent Work and Economic Work (12 targets)
SDG #10 - Reduce inequality within and among countries (10 targets)
SDG #16 - Peace Justice and Strong Institutions (12 targets)