ANERA Provides Iraqi Refugee Children with Educational Opportunities in Jordan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“…the most significant displacement crisis in the Middle East since the dramatic events of 1948….”
-Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

WASHINGTON, D.C., Friday, November 2, 2007. American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) will provide educational opportunities to approximately 1,000 Iraqi refugee children in Jordan, aged 6 through 12, with support from a $725,000 grant from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM). Jordan’s King Abdullah opened a window of opportunity for ANERA by overturning a Ministry of
Education restriction on education to anyone lacking a residency permit.

ANERA’s Jordan office has launched its BPRM-supported project in the Amman neighborhoods of Hai Nazzal and Suwielieh, and low-income neighborhoods in the cities of Zarqa and Aqaba. In partnership with UNHCR, UNICEF, Jordan’s Ministry of Education and other local NGO partners, ANERA’s project will continue through the 2007-2008 academic year and subsequent summer session.

The three program goals will be to remove the legal, financial and social barriers that keep Iraqi children from enrolling in Jordanian schools, ensure the adequacy of physical and psychological support for displaced Iraqi children and providing academic support that allows them to successfully integrate into local educational systems. The project also will support educational opportunities for low-income Jordanian students.

ANERA has supported refugee, relief and development activities in Jordan for nearly four decades. Since opening in January 2004, ANERA’s Amman-based office has worked with local women’s groups in income-earning activities with funding from the Middle East Partnership Initiative, provided scholarships for underprivileged children attending the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Salt and provided in-kind medical assistance through the Ministry of Health and the Jordan Red Crescent Society.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that approximately 750,000 refugees have fled to Jordan since the Iraq war began over four years ago.

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Media Contact: Liz Demarest
Director of Communications
Phone: (202) 842-2766
ldemarest@anera.org