Update VIII - November 2019
Amanda Lane, Executive Director
Collateral Repair Project
I can’t believe that two years have already passed by and we have wrapped up the Hope Beyond Displacement project! As I have watched us develop innovative programs, reach new community members and carefully train personnel, I am so inspired and motivated by the outcomes we have achieved. Before the start of this grant period, CRP had identified how to best support women and girls in East Amman through community center programming, but we didn’t have the resources to design, implement and evaluate these activities. Today, we have the curricula, physical materials and, most importantly, trained staff and community members to offer holistic programming according to the different needs of women and girls in our community.
A brief glimpse at HBD’s impact by the numbers:
- 2,011 total community members reached;
- 1,943 program participants and 68 full- and part-time staff, volunteers and instructors;
- 14 total programs created or improved;
- 11 total nationalities represented in programs;
- Of the program participants, 1,206 children, 645 adults and 93 teens.
When I think about different community members that this project has reached, a Syrian woman named Yasmeen comes to mind. She started out at CRP by taking the International Computer Driver’s License (ICDL) training. She says that she felt supported by the instructor and the other women in the course, which is what motivated her to study hard to then receive high marks on the ICDL test despite having minimal computer skills previously. She then moved on to participate in the Coding Course because she was excited by the opportunity to develop her skills further. After graduating from both, she wanted a way to give back and decided to become a volunteer with the Super Girls program to teach the girls computer skills. She has loved the opportunity to meet people and now to help improve the lives of others, inspiring a new generation of girls interested in technology. I love Yasmeen’s story because she exactly represents what we are trying to inspire in the community: after taking the time to work on one’s self and one’s own skills, CRP is a place to give back to others and continue the cycle of good will.
Another woman who makes me think of all things FAWCO is Salwa. She participated in four different activities (ICDL, Coding, Hope Workshop and Women’s Empowerment) and was a volunteer/trainer for two others (Women’s Empowerment and Super Girls). For her, participating in these programs was a way for her to learn about her rights and then put those lessons into action by continuing to work on herself and her own professional development. Salwa says that she receives a lot of criticism from her family because she is in her mid-thirties and still unmarried and without children. Her family tells her that she should not be spending so much time at CRP; she should be trying to find a husband. But she says that thanks to everything she learned in the Women’s Empowerment course, she feels equipped to navigate these difficult conversations and explain to them that learning new skills and volunteering is what gives her life meaning.
Stories like theirs aren’t the only way for us to understand the impact these programs are having on the community. Thanks to the efforts of our small Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team that only started officially once we hired a full time MEL officer in February 2019, we now have a variety of tools like surveys, focus group discussions and observations to allow us to track program progress and influence programmatic adaptation. With the HBD activities over the past spring and summer, we were able to administer surveys at the beginning and end of program cycles in order to compare baseline to endpoint data. Some of the data points we gathered include:
- 70% of Super Girls’ parents report that the problems their children were dealing with have improved;
- 74% of ICDL students find the instructor to be engaging;
- 93% of Beauty School participants made at least 3 new friends in the course
- Women’s Empowerment 101 participants could communicate more clearly and with more self-confidence from the pre- to the post-project focus group discussion;
- 40% of Men’s GBV training participants say they will use the course to better communicate with their wives and children;
- 50% of participants in WE 101 and GBV found the new trainers to be engaging before we gave them continued coaching support;
- 86% of the Leadership in Action participants said the program made them strongly feel like part of a team.
All in all, it’s super clear that FAWCO has been hugely instrumental in the development and expansion of our programs supporting women and girls. FAWCO was extremely supportive and flexible in all coordination, and it’s because of this that the project was such a success. We are also extremely grateful for the additional funds that your many clubs raised, and we plan to use them to fund the salaries of the project’s core staff so that we can keep as many FAWCO activities running as possible.
Thank you all for your support of the Hope Beyond Displacement project. It was by all means a success, and the Hashemi Shamali community will forever be changed as a result. And be sure to keep in touch with us! Even though CRP will no longer be FAWCO’s Target Project, there are so many ways that you can continue to connect with our work – via following our social media posts, sharing with others what you know about CRP, or signing up for our newsletter. We are forever grateful to FAWCO for your amazing support of CRP!
Amanda Lane, Executive Director
Collateral Repair Project
Read the 2019 Final Report for Hope Beyond Displacement
Read about the Target Project for Education