Factory owners to work with JOHUD in reaching out to local community

AMMAN — Factories in east Amman are an integral part of the community, an incubator and supporter without which they cannot grow, an investor said Wednesday.

"Whatever we give back to the community is not a gift but a responsibility. It is our duty to help our neighbours," said Iyad Abu Haltam, chairman of the Eastern Amman Investors Industrial Association (EAIIA), which gathers 120 factories and industrial establishments.

Abu Haltam was among several other investors and industrialists who were brought by the National Goodwill Campaign to a Social Support Centre affiliated with the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development
(JOHUD) in east Amman's Marka suburb.

The investors accompanied HRH Princess Basma, president of the goodwill campaign's higher committee, on the visit to take a closer look at what the youths at the centre have to offer, and to coordinate closely with JOHUD to provide employment opportunities for the centre's graduates.

During the visit, the EAIIA signed an agreement with JOHUD to cooperate in securing jobs for young Jordanians and providing donations to the National Goodwill Campaign.

"The members of our association employ some 26,000 workers, 88 per cent of whom are Jordanians," Abu Haltam added, noting that the major problem facing industries is the lack of graduates specialised in the needed fields.

"What we are forced to deal with is a type of structural unemployment. When we are looking for a printing technician, we get applications from accountants and engineers," he said at a meeting with Princess Basma and representatives of the centre.

The princess stressed the importance of addressing the needs of industrialists by training young people to work in the areas that are in demand.

"It is time we developed our programmes based on your needs," she told Abu Haltam, adding that the vocational training programmes offered to young people should be based on the available job opportunities.

Amman Chamber of Commerce Chairman Issa Murad said there are 10,000 commercial and service establishments in the Marka and Abu Alanda areas in east Amman, adding that the chamber is ready to promote job opportunities through its employment and liaison offices.

The Marka centre targets school dropouts, at-risk youths, child labourers and home-bound girls between the ages of seven and 18, offering them free psychosocial support, education in a less formal environment, vocational training and capacity-building programmes.

Transportation to and from the centre is also provided, according to Qais I. Tarawneh, director of social support programmes at JOHUD.

During her visit to the centre, Princess Basma spoke to beneficiaries and students and distributed in-kind assistance to 150 families.

Students receive three cycles of education, equivalent to the 10th grade Education Ministry certificate, and are then either linked with vocational training centres to specialise in an area of their choosing or continue studying at home to apply for the General Secondary Certificate Examination, Tarawneh told The Jordan Times.

JOHUD — which also runs a similar centre in Mafraq, some 80km northeast of Amman, in cooperation with the Labour Ministry — is preparing to open other centres in Maan and Irbid.

"The needs are great. We would — if we could — have one centre in each governorate," Tarawneh said.

Since its establishment in 2008, the Marka centre has targeted 3,188 children, according to project manager Sireen Al Syouf.

Some 2,500 families have benefited from the centre's programmes, which also include financial-capacity training for parents to start small-sized income-generating projects.

Through the agreement with the EAIIA,
JOHUD will work on a pilot project at the Marka centre, under which young job seekers will be able to shadow workers at factories in the area to gain exposure to a professional work environment, Tarawneh said.

In addition, a projected mentorship programme will allow a group of youths to regularly meet with leading industrialists to learn from their experience.

As part of the agreement, JOHUD will also be able to match young people with vocational training in fields that are in demand by the industrial sector.

"At a recent meeting with industrialists, we were told that there are around 1,860 industrial facilities in east Amman with at least 3,000 available job opportunities," Tarawneh said.

"We just need to train our youths in accordance with these needs."