Video .. Refugees in Jordan reproduce their aid to sell it and provide the necessary needs

Ayman Fadilat-Amman

Syrian refugee Mona Al-Shabib (34 years) returns the food aid she receives from the UNHCR and charities in the form of pastries, sweets or items of food for sale in the bazaars and exhibitions in order to secure treatment or winter heating expenses.

Mona is supporting a paralyzed husband and a girl who has cancer, and she tells Al-Jazeera Net that "with the food I get from UNHCR or charities, I make food and sweets to sell and provide treatment needs for my husband and daughter. I save as much food as possible to secure winter heating and treatment medicine."

Mona receives financial aid from the UNHCR, which pays her house rent and water and electricity bills, and she spends on her family by selling food products, sweets, clothes, and more.

The UNHCR in Jordan provides financial and food aid to the refugees registered with it, according to the number of individuals and the poverty situation in which they live, ranging on average between 250 and 300 dollars per month.

Production association
Iraqi refugee Bashaer Al-Tamimi at the third winter bazaar organized by the High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, in cooperation with the Galleria Mall, showcasing her craft products of embroideries, bags and Christmas gifts.

Almost three years ago, Bashaer established a production workshop for these crafts, telling Al-Jazeera Net that the employer includes about 70 Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Yemeni women refugees, as well as Jordanian women looking for work, and helps to provide financial income, though modest.

Al-Tamimi and her workers provide the raw materials for the products, either from in-kind and financial assistance provided to them, or through simple operating loans, and in the event of selling the products, the capital is recycled to introduce new raw materials to manufacture the products.

The bazaar included more than forty platforms for marketing refugee products from various nationalities, including Iraqi, Yemeni, Sudanese and Syrian, in addition to the sons of the Jordanian local community, and the bazaar witnessed an influx of visitors to acquire exhibits and purchase various products, forming a moral and financial support for the producers.

About 750,000 refugees registered with the UNHCR live in Jordan, distributed among 57 Arab and foreign nationalities, of whom approximately 654,000 are Syrian refugees, and the rest are of other nationalities. About 126,000 Syrian refugees reside in Zaatari and Azraq camps, while the majority reside outside the camps .

While Jordan estimates the number of Syrian refugees residing in the Kingdom at about 1.3 million, half of them are registered as refugees with the UNHCR and the rest live there without refugee status.

The poverty rate among refugees in Jordan amounts to about 90%, and to counter that, Jordan opened the door for Syrian refugees to obtain work permits within the country to provide financial income that would secure a decent life for them.

Henna Patterns
In a corner of the bazaar, Yemeni refugee Amal Mowaffaq, 33, stands literally engraving beautiful henna drawings at the hands of her daughter, and she tells Al-Jazeera Net, “My mother is a craft of henna engraving for brides, and I paint for women at parties and events, especially since this engraving began to spread in Jordan.”

She adds, for the first time, I participate in the bazaar, and I seek to market myself. May I get a job opportunity to support my family of five, so my husband does not work because he does not have a work permit, and debts accumulate on us.

Connecting producers with shoppers
"UNHCR has been setting up such bazaars in support of refugee products, to form a link between producers and shoppers, and to open up job opportunities and new markets for products," says the UNHCR's External Relations Officer, Yassin's appeal to Al Jazeera Net.

She adds that the products of refugees and members of the Jordanian society displayed in the bazaars are varied between food products, embroideries, wooden decorations and handcraft products, and we seek to provide financial income for the participants by selling their products.

The UNHCR began last month distributing cash assistance for the winter to eligible refugees in Jordan. This assistance is provided once during the winter season, and its value ranges between $ 260 per person and $ 440 for a family of seven.

The winter aid campaign, according to UNHCR data, targeted nearly 96,000 families, with 400,000 Syrian refugees, and about 55,000 refugees of other non-Syrian nationalities. The campaign aims to secure the urgent needs of refugees by the onset of winter.