‘Winter campaign concludes after benefiting over 5,000 Syrian, Jordanian families’

AMMAN –– Around 5,847 underprivileged Jordanian and Syrian families have benefited from a winter campaign that lasted for over four months, organisers said on Tuesday.

Launched by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in collaboration with Save the Children Jordan (SCJ) in December last year, the initiative covered all parts of the Kingdom, SCJ CEO Manal Wazani said.  

“The campaign was designed to ease as much as possible the difficulties people face during winter,” she told reporters at a press conference to announce the conclusion and outcomes of the campaign, financed by the Swiss agency.  

Under the initiative, gas heaters, blankets and packages of winter clothes were distributed to the beneficiaries.

In a previous interview with The Jordan Times, Wazani said information about eligible families was obtained from the SCJ database, which includes more than 20,000 Syrian refugees and underprivileged Jordanian families. The information was collected through SCJ programmes that address education, protection, nutrition and livelihood.

Nour Abdul Hadi, the Swiss agency’s national programme officer, said the campaign is part of the Swiss government’s attempts to alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees in Jordan, who number over 600,000.

Wazani told The Jordan Times that the campaign focused on the capital and the southern region, since most societies and organisations focus on the northern region, where thousands of Syrians have taken refuge among host communities and at camps.  

“We found that many families in Amman are also in need of help,” she said.   

The majority of Syrian refugees live among host communities, with some estimates suggesting that over 1 million Syrians have taken refuge in the Kingdom since the crisis erupted in their country in 2011.

Jordan now has three official Syrian refugee camps: Zaatari, Mreijeb Al Fhoud and Azraq, which officially opened last week.