At the regional training, Amal was joined by women nominated from different civil society organizations, from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Palestine, and Syria, who all came together to build strategies for involving more women from conflict-affected areas in peace-building. Amal reflected on her workshop experiences with WLP, stating,
“The workshops allowed me to understand how I can share this information with the community and how to increase their knowledge, raise their awareness. I am thankful for the support and guidance because there are certain issues that you might be unaware of on a personal level or even at a work-related level, such as how you could use information that you have to benefit society.”
Since her engagement with WLP materials and trainers, Amal became the Manager of the Women’s Department at the Greater Amman municipality, narrowing her professional focus on women’s development. As the head of the women’s division she works in four areas including: awareness and education, training and empowerment of women, enabling voluntary work to ensure that women have a meaningful role in their society, and enabling communication and connections with women in society.
Amal has now trained hundreds of men and women in Jordan and held multiple educational workshops with the aim of ending early marriage. She has conducted 5 workshops specifically focused on educating men on the topic of early marriage, which she identifies as a challenging but necessary component to ultimately end the practice in Jordan.
Whether it is at home, at her workplace, or when conducting workshops in her community, Amal employs the leadership and communication skills she enhanced through WLP’s participatory trainings on a daily basis. When asked about opportunities to continue empowering other Jordanian women, she left us with this slogan:
“’Your strength is from her strength.’ “This is something we should grow and allow to continue.”