The Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugees Work DSPR – Jordan actalliance Syrian Refugees Relief Project SYR 131 April & May Report, 2014 Project Achievements

Introduction This report covers April and May,2014 achievements of DSPR Jordan within the Syrian refugees relief program funded by Act Alliance SYR131 which included various relief components for Syrian refugees whom their number had reached to (588979) refugees according to UNHCR official registration, and an undetermined number of unregistered refugees in Jordan, including many who have moved into the country's towns and cities in addition to the daily influx of around (600) Syrian refugee to Jordan. The main challenge that faced DSPR Jordan is meeting the increasing demands of those refugees with the limited financial resources that DSPR Jordan get.

Continuous Response As indicated previously, the daily influx to Jordan is around (600) refugees whom they face a lot of problems in securing shelter and food. From here DSPR has respond immediately to those needs through its voluntary network from both Syrians and Jordanians and managed through this networking with also some local NGO’s in Balqa governorate which they witnessed an increase of the daily fleeing of Syrian refugees. DSPR Jordan managed to distribute (500) relief parcels (Food, Dignity kits, and Infants parcels) in Balqa governorate (Jordan Valley) for (200) Syrian family of about (1600) individuals. Syrian refugees expressed their deep gratitude to DSPR for their support and high level of organization for relief event and in the same time respecting their humanity and respect.

Relations Expanded DSPR Jordan increased the level of work with its field workers and volunteers to conduct more home visits, interviews, training and awareness workshops, in addition to field studies and data collection and documentation with more focus on the new refugees in host communities. DSPR Jordan managed to cover (7) governorates (Irbid,Amman,Kerak,Aqaba, Zarqa,Balqa and Madaba) networking with wild number of NGO’s, CBO’s, Women Programs Centers. DSPR Jordan managed to plan, implement a total of (28) training sessions in the fields of Health & nutrition, Psychosocial, CBO’s training sessions, Mother Support Groups, Life Skills, Civic Education, Children Forums, and Evaluation and Feedback sessions. All these events focused on women and children being the most needy and most vulnerable.

(1400) Women and children benefited from the following activities and events: 1)Health and Nutrition Sessions This kind of events focused on a theme which is nutrition during the time of crisis, and how to train mothers on managing the basic needs of their families at minimal cost. Also the focus was about first aid, and primary care of family members. On a higher level, the sessions focused on food substitutes, food production at home level, taking on consideration the good reputation of the Syrian women on managing family issues and home economics. DSPR Jordan benefited from this abilities to recruit these women to become trainers and facilitators in the field of health & nutrition.

Psychosocial, and Mother Support Groups Sessions These events considered to be the place where Syrian refugee women can express their feelings and frustrations due to the crisis they are facing even if these expressions reached to a level where women can be emotionally interacting even cry sometimes. This events were the safe and secure place for these women with the support of educators and facilitators where they gave the space to let out what ever they feel. “ Huda Al-Mawla, Syrian refugee woman at Talbiah Camp said: Thanks DSPR for giving us the opportunity to meet each other and strengthen our relations.”

Mother Support Groups and Psychosocial Sessions dealt with many psychological issues such as: - Managing psychological shocks - Living with loosing some one dear - Managing future fears In additional to some relaxation exercises either individually or within groups making sure that women themselves are helping DSPR running such events to reinforce self confidence and positive thinking. DSPR has success stories that represent girls, women that managed to break their isolation and pains. “ Maha Al-Musli, Syrian refugee woman who participated in Mother Support Groups in Shunah Governorate said: The workshops are very well designed and it helped us in various ways to meet our needs”.

Children Forums This kind of activities are directed to Syrian children of both gender of age (8-14) years old. It accomplished a great successes on two levels: 1- Contribute to develop childhood and take out all negative feelings of children who have depression, aggression due to what they have been through in Syria. (65%) of the children whom suffered the following negative behaviors and reflections: 1- Bed wetting. 2- Inwardness 3- Sudden emotional reactions such as shouting, crying, and Epilepsy. 4- The well to work alone. 5- Delay in Academic achievement(Learning Difficulties).

On another level, these forums had achieved great success in developing the abilities of children at participation, interaction and achievements. The philosophy of these forums is based on securing clean, safe, and rich environment with tools and materials for children to join and work on themes in each forum such as: 1- Recycling 2- Environment 3- Voluntary Work 4- Expressionist painting Mrs. Trish Murray the regional coordinator of Church World Service- New Zealand and Ben Fraser the regional coordinator of ACT for Peace visited one of these forums at Talbiah camp. The forum worked on the concept of creativity. Children were delighted to have Mrs. Murray and Mr. Fraser participating with them their activities. “ Mrs. Murray and Mr. Fraser said: This is very interesting, children are very happy, such forums are very important for children to build their personalities.” This forums are greatly needed and the required trainers and facilitators are available and well trained to manage and run such forums, but this depends on the availability of fund.

CBO’s Training DSPR always in need for local partners to support its programs and activities. For this reason DSPR started training a number of CBO’s on different skills and experiences to enable these CBO’s gain the ability to interact and respond to what its communities can face of sudden circumstances or crisis. For example how can a CBO’s respond to the needs of the refugees that are residing in that community, in addition to training on different components such as crisis management, planning and managing relief campaigns.

Life and Social Skills This program targets youth of both gender and handle different important components designed and planned using interaction learning method which was appropriate for this category of youth. The program included various activities carefully selected such as Effective Communication Skills, Building Self- Esteem, Positive Thinking, Develop Resume, Team Work, Time Management, Using Computer, etc..

Free Medical Day On may, 22 nd, 2014, DSPR Jordan conducted free medical day at Shounah Governorate (Jordan Valley) in the fields of Gynecology, Pediatric and General Medicine. ► (3) Doctors participated in the medical ► (20) volunteers helped clients and guided them through the day. ► (462) patients benefited from the free medical days through check up and receiving medicine. - (182) Women - (83) General Medicine - (197) Children both gender ► (3) Wheel Chairs were donated to the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Shounah Governorate.

Partner’s Visit Talbiah Camp Girls Training Center witnessed the following partners visits: ►Representative of ACT for Peace, Mr. Ben Fraser and Mrs. Trish Murray representative of Church World Service- New Zealand on 17/5/2014. ►Representative of ICCO- Holland Mr. Dick Loendersloot,his Colleague Mr. Gerrad and Ms.Wendy Gichuru, Ms. Gillian, and Ms. Kukubo from United Church of Canada on 26/5/2014. ► All the above partners participated and highly integrated in the following activities: ►Children Forums ►Bazaars for the Syrian refugee women and Palestinians products (food, accessories, crafts, carpet, folkloric production unit. ►Workshop on “ Skin Care” ►Workshop on “ How to start your own project” within the Mother Support Group Program. ►Food production workshop for the purpose of marketing and income generation. ►Workshop on “ Group Solidarity” ►Home visits for a number of Syrian families. ►meeting with living stories from Syrian refugee women.

►Representative of Bread for the World, Mr. Jens Halve, and the representative of Embrace the Middle East Mr. Stephen Tunstall who visited DSPR Jordan activities at the Jordan Valley (Shounah Governorate) on 13/5/2014. The guests participated in the following activities: - Distributing (500) relief parcels ob (200) Syrian and needy families. - Meeting with the Syrian Jordanian Committee that ran the relief event. - Meeting with some of the beneficiaries and listened to their stories and answered their questions The guests interactions All visitors expressed their full appreciation of all the activities that took place during their visits, all theses activities were well organized, planned and implemented by the Syrian – Jordanian committee and follow up of DSPR Jordan team. Our dear visitors listened to living stories during their visit about the situation of Syrian women, their sufferings, the challenges they are facing, and the positive impact that was left on them due to their participation in DSPR activities Mrs. Huda Al-Mula a lady who participated in in one of the workshops said: “I have been in Jordan for about one year and a half, I did not receive any help except from DSPR, they supported me and stood by my side”. Mrs. Fareedah Kan”an a Syrian woman and a member of the Syrian Jordanian Committee said: “ I lost hope and was desperate and afraid, but being a member of DSPR committee gave me the confidence and the knowledge of how to deal with my children in their crisis”.

Training Manuals Development DSPR Jordan has completed its life Skills Training Manual in two parts, the first one is (Facilitator Manual) and the second one is (Participants Manual) to be used by trainers, facilitators, who are working in training field with Syrian refugees. This manual will be printed and distributed to all concerned trainers and CBO’s.

DSPR Jordan Concept Paper on HAP & CRM During 2013 and 2014 DSPR Jordan has been very active in the log frame of very important aspects which are HAP and CRM. DSPR Jordan developed at the beginning of the Relief project with Syrian refugees its own Code of Conduct based on the international criteria of Code of Conduct like the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. DSPR Jordan developed this conduct and used it in all training stages of the Jordanian- Syrian committees that were formulated to help DSPR in all its activities and programs. DSPR also implemented several workshops on the Code of Conduct for its board and staff. On another aspect, DSPR Jordan started to work on one of the most important benchmarks of HAP which is the Complaints Response Mechanism, where DSPR started to translate references from Act alliance concerning building response mechanism for complaints. This document was discussed from DSPR board and staff and approved. After that DSPR Jordan translated the second reference document on the principles of investigation and its procedures, where this document consider to be the basic support for later steps in building effective response mechanism. On other hand, DSPR Jordan participated in the training workshop held in Amman as /12/2013 and the second training workshop in Antalya – Turkey as of 6-10/4/2014 on HAP. These workshops helped DSPR and supported it in the field of CRM.

ACT/JSL Forum DSPR Jordan organized the monthly ACT/JSL Forum meeting which took place in May 28 th,2014 attended by the implementing partners (DSPR Jordan, IOCC,LWF, FCA) and visiting partners from ICCO Holland Mr. Dick Loendersloot and his colleague Mr. Gerrad the finance officer of ICCO Holland A farewell gift from DSPR folkloric production was presented to Ms. Johanna Nordahal from FCA who will finish work with FCA IN June 2014.

Dear Partners DSPR Jordan would like to thank each one of you for your continuous support and sympathy to DSPR and the work it is doing. Your generous support helped us and inspired us during our work with the people in need in the time of crisis. Continue supporting DSPR will help us stand by our brothers and sisters who are in need. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”(Acts:20:35) God bless you all