Her shy personality may not reflect how active she is. Raghad Abu-Aishah 22, lives in Amman with her family. She is completing her master’s degree in sociology at the University of Jordan, and spends her spare time volunteering and doing community work.
“When I face difficulties in my work, I try to learn to figure it out, never giving up.” Displaying a positive attitude, Raghad talks about her passion for community service and her eagerness to learn the basics of management and organization.”If I had more time, I would do more things. There are many community projects I want to start,” says Raghad, who interns at the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) Al Nahda Thought Center.
Raghad started volunteering three years ago, a time which she intensively spent learning and working. She volunteered with local associations, municipalities in the Zarqa and Amman governorates, reform and rehabilitation centers, and family care centers. In addition to the training she has gained in all these places, she also works on several short-term initiatives that serve adolescents, the elderly, and the community at large.
Raghad got acquainted with ARDD through the Qudrat Association, with whom she worked as a volunteer; she began this journey by participating in the Harat Al Ouneh initiative, which was launched by Jordan NGOs Forum in 2020 in response to COVID-19. She has since attended the Solidarity for Equality training for first aid and gender sensitivity, as part of Empowering Each Other project implemented in partnership with UN Women and funded by the Australian government, as part of the project she also attended training on analysis and data-collection ethics, after which she participated in collecting data on people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. After analyzing and verifying the data, the volunteers selected eight of the most affected women and provided them with emergency cash assistance to help them meet the basic needs of their families and maintain their social wellbeing.
What started as participation in an initiative became an official internship with ARDD, in Al Nahda Thought Center, which is another manifestation of community participation and community service, in her opinion.
Raghad seeks to contribute to amplifying the voices of young people in the areas where she works and believes that the family is at the core of her social work. As such, she wants to implement more initiatives focused on family counseling and family protection and hopes to get support to pursue this passion.
This article is part of a series of blogs about participants in the ARDD programs and projects under the Harat Al Ouneh (“Supportive Neighborhoods”) initiative, which aims to help mitigate the repercussions of the Covid-19 crisis and safeguard the security of the community.
