Robert O’Neill

IRBID - US Peace Corps volunteers and their Jordanian partners conclude on Friday a young women’s empowerment training camp designed to help prepare the next generation of the Kingdom’s women leaders.

Named Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), the programme, which started Sunday, hosted 26 girls between 9th and 12th grades from rural villages where Peace Corps volunteers are serving.

Working in collaboration with students and administrators from the Jordan University of Science and Technology and the Civil Society Development Centre, female Peace Corps volunteers developed GLOW to aid young Jordanian women in realising a greater sense of self-confidence, female camaraderie and independence.

According to one camp counsellor, one of the camp’s main objectives was to help participants realise they “have control over their futures”.

Centre director and project contributor Mohammad Qasem Al Hamad highlighted the fact that women’s empowerment initiatives are on the rise throughout the Kingdom, in large part “thanks to King Abdullah and his continued focus on this particular issue”.

He told The Jordan Times that Camp GLOW is “a perfect example” of women’s empowerment training, calling it “the pearl in the crown of cooperation with the Peace Corps” and a place where the participants “will learn to become the future female leaders of Jordan”.

This year’s programme was free of charge, offering rural and economically disadvantaged girls the opportunity to attend an all-women-run and operated summer camp, he added.

The camp focused on leadership skills and career development in order to help “solidify their [the participants] life’s goals and break these goals down step by step” into clear objectives, according to camp organisers.

The 26 young women took part in team-building and self-esteem activities, leadership training, goal development workshops and environmental awareness training over the week-long camp.

In addition, the participants attended a special brainstorming session on how to implement community service projects in their own communities upon completion of the camp.

Currently women account for 6 per cent of entrepreneurs in the formal sector in Jordan, compared to the global average of 30 per cent.

This can partially be attributed to “a lack of understanding about career options” available to women, according to programme coordinator and Peace Corps volunteer Mindy Ko.

Seeking to remedy this, GLOW organisers sought to expose the 26 participants to positive Jordanian female role models in order to give examples of “successful, empowered women”.

The role models included Jordanian camp counsellors and an all-female-career panel, set up to demonstrate some of the careers and life options available to women in the Kingdom and to show the participants how to achieve a balance between family and career.

“The girls pick up on these examples and gain a greater understanding of their own independence,” Ko told The Jordan Times, adding that the Peace Corps hopes the camp becomes self-sustaining so that future generations of Jordanian girls can benefit.

“A big part of Peace Corps work is always to involve Jordanians in project development, so they can carry on the project when the Peace Corps leaves,” Ko noted.

For many participants, the camp was a time of firsts.

The majority had never spent time away from home without family, while others had never met other young women facing similar obstacles and sharing the same goals and career aspirations.

Camp participant Loma Madanab from Karak Governorate stated that she believes her time at Camp GLOW has helped her become more organised, professional and confident.

“Women are equal to men, but we need to know how to use our opportunities,” she noted.

Upon returning to her village, Madanab hopes to “change the minds of fathers, brothers and husbands about the role of women”.

“Some men think women are weak, but if we believe in ourselves, we can do the same things men can do but better,” she added.

Since 1997, the Peace Corps has been serving in Jordan at the invitation of the late King Hussein. All volunteers are assigned to rural primary and secondary schools under the Ministry of Education, with 61 volunteers currently serving in the Kingdom.