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Interviews with Najah: Transcript (cont)

Samantha: I was reading in the program that you worked specifically with marginalized groups, and groups that have very few opportunities. Can you expand on this a little bit?

 
Mario Twal, Community Mobilizer & Team Leader for Najah in the Central Region: Actually, part of the mission of Najah here is to reach the out-of-reach people, the unreached, those who were underprivileged, if you like. They were not exposed to opportunities. Those who are staying in recognized poverty pockets in Jordan. And this kind of mission took us to areas like, in the central area here, to the south of the Amman airport, around 450 square kilometers inhabited by 18,000 people there, very unfortunate, unserved, a high rate of unemployment, and kind of zero opportunities. This has become one of our target areas in the central region. The youth there needed to get in touch with a piece of hope, if you want, for the future, to look into their strengths, to work on their strengths with them, develop them, and then, guide them through – link them – to potential opportunities, because the area is becoming a target for the investors, and for the big industries, whereas the airport is an attraction to these industries. (Listen)
 

Samantha: In terms of the actual modules and the kinds of training to engage these youth that you were talking about, how were they developed? How were they designed and implemented, and how did you begin the process of training and reaching out to these youth and creating that positive attitude, in terms of workforce readiness?

 

One of the key principles is that all of us learn best from doing things. In the Middle East, education systems are still very much taught rather than experienced. And we wanted to move away from that.

 

Amy: Those are really good questions. I remember two and half years ago when we started Najah and we didn’t have a training module, we actually had some principles and some ideas and that’s about it. And now to look at what has been developed is really amazing. Let me just say the kind of principles we were working on. And they were to focus, to really say, this is what we can do in the period of time that we work with these youth, and this is what we can’t do. We looked at piloting, and that’s another really important principle. The training modules were developed with the youth, in many respects. The youth that went through the first three, or even we can say six, groups of Najah, which we called Youth Najah Journey, they helped us to put a lot of this material [together]. We would use skeleton-type outline activities, but really it was tested with them. So after two years of implementation, we can say we have a curriculum and a training approach – and those two things are important: not just the curriculum, a training approach – that is very unique, and that was developed with youth, and in many cases by youth.


Now, one of the other key principles of this was that young people learn best – all of us, in fact, not just young people – all of us learn best from doing things. And you probably know, Samantha, that across the Middle East region and probably around the world, education systems are still very much taught rather than experienced. And we wanted to definitely move away from that, so a lot of this training – we call it more like experimentation – it’s really opportunities for young people to try out, to practice, to learn from their mistakes, to make a mistake and say, “It’s OK. It’s acceptable, and I can learn, and next time I will do it better.” Learning by doing is another a really important part.


Another last point that I think is really important to say here, is that we relied on something called the SOS model. The Services-Opportunities-Support model. And, when we looked around, we saw that a lot of training is a service: young people come together for 2 weeks, they learn XYZ, and they go away. But then, putting what you learned into practice, and having an opportunity to link that to a job, was really not there. So we look at those opportunities. And the last piece, the support piece, is that young people don’t live inside these programs. They live in their communities, and they’re very much influenced by the adults that live with them. And so, if a young person wants to do something, but they don’t get adult support, they probably won’t be able to do it. So engaging parents in the process of the training was really important.


And based on those principles, we developed the curriculum that Roa’a can talk more about, but I would say that another unique feature of it is that it doesn’t start with skills; it starts with “me”. With who I am, with the self. So it’s got a – have you seen the logo for Najah?

 
Samantha: No, what’s it like?

 

The curriculum was built starting with "me," then "my family," then "my community," and then "the workplace."

 

Amy: It looks like a spiral. And at the center of that spiral is “discovering myself,” and that’s really where the Najah journey starts: who I am. What are my values, how do they relate to my family’s values, and my community’s values? And then we move out to the family circle and the community circle. And from there we move out to the workplace circle. So that’s really how the curriculum was built, starting with “me,” then “my family,” then “my community,” and then “the workplace.” Roa’a will tell you more about the components, the modules, and the flavor of the activities.

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