Students conduct national campaigns on women, environment, public services

AMMAN — Some 341 university students from 23 universities on Wednesday graduated from a youth-enabling programme after spending a year working on campaigns aimed at empowering women, helping the environment and improving public services.

Offered by the National Democratic Institute, the programme “comes as a response to King Abdullah’s vision for the youth in his numerous discussion papers”, according to John Maiser, the programme manager, who said: “We saw that as a call to step in and help the youth develop the needed skills for leadership and advocacy.”

This year, some 27 campaigns targeting various social, environmental and gender challenges across Jordan were organised, some leading to tangible achievements such as the amendment of certain laws and policies. Others, Maiser said, were able to be brought to the attention of parliamentarians although they have not been fully executed yet.

“Although having policies changed thanks to the students’ campaigns is a great success, the aim of the programme is to teach them the necessary political skills they might need in the future, even if that doesn’t result in immediate change,” the programme manager told The Jordan Times.

A number of these campaign targeted the 2010 36th Civil Service By-law which made it possible for 15 years old to get married if the supreme judge allowed it.

One of the campaigns, dubbed “Leave Her Doll in Her Hands” was conducted by students in Mutah University who said they were moved by statistics showing that 66.3 per cent of illiterate women in Jordan attribute that to their early marriage.

Sohaib Sharawneh, a student in the campaign, told The Jordan Times: “When we looked at the statistics, we thought that this was an exceedingly important issue that we needed to address. We were all very passionate about it and it was a unanimous vote among us to pursue this.”

Aya Okour, a participant in another campaign tackling the same issue, said “the progress was slow because official opinions were divided” but stressed that she and her peers still have hope because “the people’s support and encouragement of the campaign will surely bring forward change”.

Other campaigns tackled problems the students faced on a daily basis, such as transportation, with more than one initiative aiming to improve the transport system and make it more environmentally friendly.

Some students who decided to conduct a study on the subject realised that around 30 per cent of people taking public transport in Jordan reported riding with a driver who had manipulated the metre, while 23 per cent reported sexual harassment while using public transport.

As a result, the students worked alongside the Traffic Department to take serious steps towards executing articles 6 and 10 of 34th Jordan Traffic Law, which imposes a JD30 fine for drivers who manipulate the metre or do not abide by number limitations.

Meanwhile, another campaign tried encouraging the use of hybrid cars by working with the government to make it necessary for all petrol stations to have a solar-powered electric charging station for electric cars. The students said their vision was not only “to help users of hybrid cars, but also to find an environmentally-free way to do so”.

“We used to have a friend who would show up an hour late to everything because there are only eight charging stations for his car, so we wanted to alleviate some of hybrid car users’ pain,” said Naza Azad, a student in the campaign.

Her colleague Saleem Rawas added “what better way to do so than to provide them with electricity that costs basically nothing since it’s solar-powered?”

Launched in 2012, the youth-enabling programme has graduated 2,000 participants since.