Rehabilitation of school facilities have started!

The public schools in Jordan accept around 29,000 Syrian students. To tackle with the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities caused by the increasing number of students, JEN has conducted the　rehabilitation of school facilities in 10 schools in Northern Jordan which have high priority for assistance
During construction period, JEN engineer visits the construction sites almost every day to check the progress and to make sure that the quality is corresponding to our requirements.
In one of schools, Suhaib Alrumy primary school in Mafraq province, which was introduced in previous blog on 21 February 2013, the new water fountain is constructing now. Students of this school could not wash hands and drink water without climbing up the wall to open the tap of tank. The new fountain brings safe and easy access to water for children.

It is 15th March when Syrian crisis began 2 years ago. In order to ensure favorable peaceful environment for Syrian refugees who spend a long time in the place far from their home, we continue to support Syrian refugees in host community.
This project is being executed thanks to the support of Japan Platform, all our members and contributors.

 

Rehabilitation of school facilities have started!

The public schools in Jordan accept around 29,000 Syrian students. To tackle with the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities caused by the increasing number of students, JEN has conducted the　rehabilitation of school facilities in 10 schools in Northern Jordan which have high priority for assistance.

During construction period, JEN engineer visits the construction sites almost every day to check the progress and to make sure that the quality is corresponding to our requirements.

In one of schools, Suhaib Alrumy primary school in Mafraq province, which was introduced in previous blog on 21 February 2013, the new water fountain is constructing now. Students of this school could not wash hands and drink water without climbing up the wall to open the tap of tank. The new fountain brings safe and easy access to water for children.

It is 15^th March when Syrian crisis began 2 years ago. In order to ensure favorable peaceful environment for Syrian refugees who spend a long time in the place far from their home, we continue to support Syrian refugees in host community.

This project is being executed thanks to the support of Japan Platform, all our members and contributors.

 

The difference and difficulties of “selfishness” and “independence”

Zaatari refugee camp accepts around 6,000 newly arrivals last week and the camp population are still increasing incrementally.
Some shops in the main street have started to sell fresh beef, ice cream and
even café with television have been opened where refugees can get together and
collect information about their country Syria.

One of the biggest challenges we are facing is that refugees start to install private facilities just next to their caravans without any proper connection to sewage system. According to our survey, around 20% of female answered they already install private toilets and /or showers to their tents and prefabs. Reasons raised from refugees are the difficulties in using existing common facilities because many parts in those facilities were stolen or they worried about security conditions especially in the night time (few lights on the streets during night time). In addition, there are some shops selling materials such as cement and taps which can support refugee to construct their private toilet by themselves.

We have observed many children play with black water. 写真④It has been also reported that the number of water born disease cases among refugees is increasing.

Therefore, JEN conducts meeting with WASH committees of camp communities to improve proper usage and maintenance of facilities, and to spread hygiene awareness among people in the camp.

 

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Clothes for Syrians refugees in Zaatari camp

The Zaatari camp, which has been open seven months, and the situation in the camp
is freezing temperatures and cold rain and snow make life in the camp becoming very difficult in winter.

JEN is one of the humanitarian actors struggling to provide winterized assistance for
the Syrian refugees. During January 2013, JEN in partnership with UNHCR, carried out two distribution of winter clothes for 5,000 families in Zaatari camp. The team worked around the clocks to sort out and prepare the clothing packaging for each household.

On February 25, a third clothing distribution was organized by JEN for 242 families who did not benefit from JEN last distributions in camp. The cold and wind-whipped dust that morning didn’t stop some refugees, including women and children, to crowd near JEN trucks containing boxes of clothes.

After an hour of waiting, a young man was smiling when his name called by JEN staff to receive a clothing package. “I fled civil war in Syria with my brother in August last year. We left the village empty-handed because we were so panic”, said Adnan who used to live with his family in Daraa, a city in southwestern Syria, and  just north of the border with Jordan.

Many of the Syrians crossed Jordan with practically nothing.  They left with only one pair of clothes during a time of “panic and fear” as the number of injuries and deaths
increased. “Look at me, i am so dirty! This is the first time I received clothes since I moved to Zaatari”, Adnan added showing JEN package of clothes.

According UNHCR registration database, today more than 100,000 people living in Zaatari camp and this number keeps increasing each day. To respond to this situation,
JEN will continue the distribution for those who haven’t received clothing assistance. All the clothes distributed in this operation are donations from UNIQLO and Felissiomo.

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Importance of raising refugees’ awareness on water, sanitation, and hygiene in Zaatari camp

In Zaatari refugee camp, Jordanian government, International Organizations, and NGOs are cooperate together to improve the environment of Syrian refugees every day. However, it is still not enough to meet all the needs of refugees in many areas because of the exponential increase of the camp population.
One of the areas which are affected by this population increase the most is Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). It is important and urgent challenge for all of us to use and maintain the water facilities properly by refugees themselves to keep healthy and safe life with limited resource and services in the camp.

JEN works on the establishment of WASH committees of Syrian refugees in each zone of the Zaatari camp. The committee is the representative of WASH issue in each zone and many of the members are formally have many experiences in WASH such as ex-administrative officers, engineers, plumbers, or teachers. They started to work together to improve their WASH environment of their zone in the camp.
Currently, there are 2 WASH committees, and will be established other 2 WASH committees soon.

Before summer comes, it is important to raise refugees’ awareness addition to instructing proper use of WASH facilities and importance of the maintenance. It is because summer is the season when water related disease easily occurs and spread.

Furthermore, Jordan is the country has lack of water especially in summer. So it is also vital to advocate the sense of water saving.

Staffs who received hygiene education training support the establishment of WASH committees in the camp. In the future, it is expected to the refugees themselves to be the center of discussion on WASH issues.