Human Rights International

Jordan – previously unknown freedoms as a driving force for the future: Syrian refugees as a burden and opportunity

The United Nations has registered about 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan,while the government counts 1.3m Syrians who have fled from the neighbouring country into the little Hashemite kingdom since the outbreak of civil war in 2011. Only a fraction of the refugees lives in refugee camps. Ninety percent have settled in cities and towns, where they have to survive with hardly any help. Despite international assistance, the education system, health services, labour market, housing market and the state administration are overloaded. Tensions between refugees and specifically Jordan’s poorer social classes can be felt, especially in the north, where Syrian refugees
have doubled the population of some towns.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom is working with a small group of Syrian refugees from all over the country. Through the years, the Syrians have, with growing confidence, recognised the Foundation as a platform for open exchange – a safe space of a type unknown at home. They actively discuss human rights,
the rule of law, democratic participation and tolerance, as well as the causes of extremism. Making music, drawing and other art forms help the participants process past experiences and to develop an image of a freer and more open-minded society than that which they have experienced until now. As intermediaries between cultures, they can carry these liberal values into their communities and oppose domestic violence and child marriages with arguments, through persuasion and in the knowledge that they can help create a more peaceful future, one full of new opportunities.