As part of its mission to empower communities and alleviate poverty in the Middle East, the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) will help the ministry of social development enhance Jordan's health and IT sectors.
ANERA officials signed an agreement with minister of social development, Tamam Ghoul, on Sunday, to help address the development needs of local communities throughout the Kingdom. The ANERA representative said the agency has received a grant from the US agency for international development to assist in the endeavor.
ANERA's recent economic initiative, 'Poverty Reduction and Job Creation Through Information Technology in Jordan,' is designed to create thousands of specialized jobs for IT graduates. According to Neu, the program will also be implemented in the West Bank and Gaza in the near future.
“Today in Jordan, we plan to extend our efforts in three basic areas of our expertise: health, environment, community and IT development,” said Thomas Neu, ANERA Middle East representative.
Focusing on the IT sector, Neu added, “we plan to focus on human resource development. We also want to set up a center for excellence for young people to get better jobs later on in Jordan. Information technology develops new concepts for the world...That is what we'd like to do for Jordan.”
In 1968, ANERA launched its mission to provide underprivileged communities with crucial health and welfare services. Operating as a non-profit, charitable organization in the Middle East, ANERA team members work directly with grassroots organizations to formulate effective social and economic development projects.
Minister Ghoul expressed her appreciation for the project: “I hope that today's agreement will be the beginning of long-standing cooperation with ANERA. Through their IT project, they will also work to rehabilitate people and develop the country's human resources since IT seems to be the main export put on Jordan's shelf.”
The IT project additionally seeks to establish self-sustaining centers of excellence to train IT professionals in several universities in the country.
Director of the ANERA Information Technology Initiative Badie Sartawi briefly discussed ANERA's plan to develop the IT sector in cooperation with universities in the Kingdom. “We feel there is a big opportunity to develop IT in Jordan, especially since it falls in line with the plans of His Majesty King Abdullah,” she said.
Around 1,500 students graduate from universities every year, while 700 students graduate from community colleges. We would like to work with universities at an academic level so that these graduates can be trained and certified,” said Sartawi.
The centers will be composed of three elements: Training centers with professional trainers, proper equipment, state-of-the-art curricula and access to certification, secondly, a revolving loan fund that will help students finance their training courses, and finally the formation of a job placement center to help IT professionals find jobs.
“The setting up of a center for excellence is a great idea which will help target a larger number of people in Jordan. The center, similar to an Internet café, will be set up on university campuses so that way students will be able to easily access the facility in their vicinity,” said Ghoul. — ( Jordan Times )
By Dalya Dajani
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
