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AMMAN — Abdul Rahman Zghoul, a schoolteacher, is aware that giving bread to the needy has a deeper meaning in a community where bread is the staple food and a symbol of sufficiency, when available.

In the Jordanian and Arabic culture in general, bread is respected and even leftovers are not thrown in the garbage bin, unlike other foods.

Zghoul played on this social detail when he recently launched an initiative, collecting leftover bread from the community, families of schoolchildren and students themselves, and exchanging it for needed money to help poor students and pay for maintenance to the school building where he teaches.

Zghoul, 24, teaches at the public Al Rashid Secondary School in Ruseifa, a crowded, mostly refugee community to the east of Amman.

He said about 45 enthusiastic students from the school and other nearby schools help him in the implementation of the project, which is one of several initiatives supported by the Youth Empowerment Windows Initiative, which is part of the Democratic Empowerment Programme, “Demoqrati”, launched by His Majesty King Abdullah last year and is implemented by the King Abdullah II Fund for Development.

Zghoul said he reached an agreement with livestock breeders in the area under which they buy 10 sacks of leftover bread for JD25.

“I took part in several regional and international programmes on environment protection and have always been keen on doing something that will help protect the environment in Jordan,” Zghoul, a graduate with a degree in biology from the Hashemite University, told The Jordan Times last week.

Zghoul, who said he has been working as a volunteer with several NGOs in the field of environment protection over the past five years, said he took part in the Leader Global Environmental Issue Programme which is supported by the US embassy in Amman and entailed a six-week training in six states in the US. In addition, he said he took part recently in the Tunza International Youth Conference in South Africa, which focused on environmental protection training. He was also recognised as a youth ambassador by the Arab Thought Foundation in the UAE.

“I realised that students at the school throw away the leftover bread or leave it beside the windows in the classroom. Even their families throw lots of leftover bread away and put it in sacks near garbage containers. People use a lot of bread in our community and still throw away a lot of leftover bread,” Zghoul explained.

“Currently, I put boxes around the school where children can throw their leftover bread. Student volunteers help me by touring the neighbourhoods in the area every Saturday to collect leftover bread from households,” he said.

He said the money collected in return for selling leftover bread is used to give poor students a certain amount of money per day so they do not resort to quitting school to work and make money. The money is also used to buy books, stationery to use at school and is even used sometimes to finance maintenance to the school.

“The amount we make at present per week is modest, but I am optimistic that after my initiative was adopted by the Demoqrati programme I will be able to expand it, collect more bread, make more money and help more students,” he said.

Zghoul said officials in charge of Demoqrati have pledged to provide financial support to the initiative, adding that he will use the money to print T-shirts highlighting the initiative’s main objective to raise awareness among people on the campaign and will install boxes in certain spots in Ruseifa where people can leave the leftover bread.

In addition, he will hold a workshop for students from several schools in the area about how best to keep the environment and encourage recycling.

Demoqrati’s four youth empowerment “windows of opportunity” seek to encourage young people to join voluntary initiatives, institutionalise existing youth initiatives, support local community organisations to expand the outreach of their projects, and provide financial and technical support to larger projects to turn them into nationwide initiatives that reach the Kingdom’s governorates.

Seeking to enhance the values of democracy, enroot democratic practices in society and push the development process forward, Demoqrati is founded on development-boosting values such as the rule of the law, rejection of violence, acceptance of others, dialogue and accountability, according to the project’s literature.

It seeks to engage all segments of society, especially young people, in building a conscious democratic culture and facilitate it through democratic institutions and supportive civil society organisations, based on confidence in the country’s ability to make change and progress in its development process.

AMMAN — Legislators were engaged on Monday in a specialised workshop on alternative sanctions and mechanisms to improve the Kingdom’s criminal justice system.

In cooperation with the British ministry of justice and the EU, the Ministry of Justice organised a specialised workshop for members of the Lower House and Senate public freedoms and legal committees on the future introduction of alternative punishments into Jordan’s judicial system.

Inaugurating the workshop, Justice Minister Bassam Talhouni said the ministry is currently working on implementing an EU-funded development programme for the Kingdom’s criminal justice system as part of its compliance with principles of human rights and keenness on coping with all legislative and administrative developments.

Talhouni said the project entails the development of an institutionalised community sanctions system based on the modern theory of punishment, which focuses on rehabilitating inmates and changing their behaviours to be able to assimilate actively and positively within their communities.

Jordan is determined to improve a set of alternative punishments to replace conventional sentences all in line with the rehabilitation of inmates’ behaviours, the minister added.

As a legal term, “alternative sanctions” refers to the utilisation of non-conventional sentences in lieu of imprisonment and fines, according to web sources.

Examples of alternative sanctions — also referred to as “community sanctions” – include community service, in-home detention, day reporting, drug treatment and victim/offender reconciliation programme.

EU project team leader Ian Lankshear stressed the importance of revisiting the relevant laws to lay down the legal basis for the introduction of alternative sanctions into Jordan’s judicial system.

Achieving justice in the criminal system is a pressing demand for the wider public with the new transformations in the Arab world, he noted.

During the workshop, titled “The Role of the Legislature in Developing Community Sanctions and the Legal Aid System”, deputies and senators underlined the need for the implementation of alternative sanctions and the utilisation of international expertise in the field in line with Jordanian culture.

Others argued that the community sanctions system is not something “unheard of” in Arab and Islamic law, citing as an example when Muslims at the time of Prophet Mohammad allowed each prisoner they took in the Battle of Badr to teach 10 Muslims to read and write to gain their freedom.

AMMAN — Officials and experts in water and wastewater reuse discussed on Monday options and alternatives for the use and disposal of sludge at the Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Water Minister Hazem Nasser said sludge management has been absent from the government’s agenda for many years, highlighting that biosolids generated from the plant can be used in energy production or for increasing agricultural productivity.

“It is vital to transform residues of the wastewater treatment process into a soil conditioner for agricultural purposes or into biofuel for use in different industries, such as cement manufacturing,” Nasser said at a workshop on Samra plant’s biosolids use and disposal options.

As the plant treats 75 per cent of wastewater generated in the Kingdom and produces 70 per cent of the country’s sludge, Nasser underscored the importance of suggesting alternatives for the safe disposal of sludge in environment-friendly methods.

“Treated wastewater is increasingly becoming a source of water that can be used for certain cultivations, such as fodder, thus saving much needed fresh water for drinking purposes,” Nasser said.

The workshop was organised by the
USAID-funded Water Reuse and Environmental Conservation Project, which is preparing the study on the options and alternatives for the use and disposal of sludge at the Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant.

During the event, Melissa Knight, USAID water resources and environment office director, highlighted the need to ensure a clean and sustainable supply of water to Jordan, noting that treated wastewater generated from the plant constitutes 10 per cent of Jordan’s total water resources.

The plant is currently under expansion, with 70 per cent of the work completed. Once rehabilitated by July 2015, the facility will become one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the Middle East and North Africa.

The plant currently treats 60 million cubic metres (mcm) of wastewater, according to officials, who said that after the expansion of the facility, its capacity will more than double to 133mcm.