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In June Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan visited the Jerash Women's Society, the most active community-based organization in the governorate and a participant in NEF's Qudorat ("Capacities") program. She demonstrated the strong public support of the royal family for the largest capacity-building undertaking in NEF's long history in the country that goes back to the 1930s.
NEF-led Qudorat is promoting local community development initiatives by strengthening existing community-based organizations and their creation of new income-generating projects. Funding—a nearly $5,600,000 total investment--comes from the Jordanian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.
As a case in point, the Jerash Women's Society offers a wide range of community services, including assistance for working women, a kindergarten, and a sewing and embroidery training workshop. 150 women and 35 physically-challenged children currently benefit from their programs. Thanks to Qudorat, in March the organization also initiated a pottery project and will be using the Internet to market their crafts domestically and begin exporting to other countries as well.
From the beginning, the response to Qudorat was overwhelming. Initially 500 applications were received—six times more than specified. By the end of this fiscal year in June, Qudorat had provided substantial training for more than 300 trainees as well as conducted more than 120 networking and awareness activities. Participants received seed-money totaling $2,822,000 at the end of the 18-month competitive assessment, training, and mentoring process. Nearly all businesses are up and running and have created more than 400 new jobs. Many far exceeded the 30 percent local organization cost-share requirement. Participation of women-run businesses is 33 percent. Another 20 community-based organizations will receive similar assistance before the end of 2006.
Over 200 participants from the Jordanian parliament, government agencies, donors, nongovernmental organizations and other community-based organizations attended May's conference and exhibition highlighting Qudorat's accomplishments by the first 43 assisted groups. Their projects covered a variety of agricultural, industrial, and service sectors in all 12 governorates in the country.
In addition to royal support, there has been wide-spread press coverage and increasing interest by the business community. More than 50 volunteer opportunities have been identified and 40-plus potential business plans been presented to the private sector. All can be viewed at the project website www.qudoratnef.org, which has attracted international attention.
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