Jordan

Jordan is today host to more than a million Syrian refugees who have fled the violent conflict engulfing their country and neighboring Iraq for several years now. While tens of thousands of children are at risk of becoming a "lost generation", Libraries Without Borders offers a regional response to this educational emergency.

Background

Since its outbreak in March 2011, the war in Syria has pushed more than one million people to seek refuge in Jordan. To cope with this influx, several large-scale camps have been set up by the national authorities in collaboration with the UN agencies and NGOs.

The majority of refugee populations, however, live precariously in urban areas and the capital Amman, with limited access to humanitarian aid services and no prospects for the future. This is particularly true for children and adolescents, who account for about half of the arrivals from Syria and Iraq and are out of school.

These massive influxes of populations, in an already vulnerable country, are generating demographic, economic and social pressures that weigh heavily on the host populations and are generating more and more community tensions.

Our approach

Since February 2014, LWB has working with local partners, international organizations and local authorities in Jordan to implement the Ideas Box in different places and contexts, and to adapt it to the linguisitic and cultural needs of both refugee and host populations.

More about our actions in Jordan

Ideas Box for Syrian refugees and host populations in Jordan
Objective

Emergency & post-conflict

Start date

2014

Status

Ongoing

BACKGROUND

In late 2014, Libraries Without Borders and its partners began implementing the Ideas Box in Jordan for refugee and host populations. The camp of Azrak, close to the Syrian border, was the first one to receive an Ideas Box.

Since then, LWB has implemented two more Ideas Box kits in Zaatari and Irbil refugee camps, as well as a fourth one in partnership with the Hashmi Community Center in Zarqa, near the capital of Amman.

These four projects have allowed LWB to lay down the groundwork for a more extensive regional coverage beginning in 2017.

BENEFICIARIES

  • Syrian refugees living in the camps of Azrak, Zaatari and Irbid, as well as in Zarqa (east of the capital, Amman)
  • Host populations in Zarqa

WITH SUPPORT FROM

Financial partners

Logo Alexander Soros Foundation

Executive partners