JICA Supports Syrian Refugees with Disabilities Living in Jordan

Japan International Cooperation Agency

Syrian Refugees with Disabilities Living in Jordan. Supplied

Syrian refugees with disabilities who live in Jordan have completed a "Guidebook to Services for People With Disabilities."

A workshop to announce the guidebook was held for local NGOs and other support groups in the capital of Amman on May 31.

This guidebook was compiled in order for refugees with disabilities, who tend to be unable to access information on the services they need and feel helpless, to be able to access organizations offering support.

In 2014, JICA began dispatching Japanese people with disabilities, as short-term experts who assisted Syrian refugees in Jordan who have disabilities. The group of people with disabilities that grew out of this decided to create the guidebook because they wanted to provide other people with disabilities with the information they needed. There was similar information available before, but there were problems such a lack of updates.

This guidebook is expected to be a big help in learning, what groups are offering what kinds of services, and what a person has to do to receive services, as well as in getting needed services.

There are almost 650,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. In addition to people with congenital impairment, there were also many people with disabilities caused by conflicts, including some whose spinal columns were damaged when they were shot or tortured. It is said that 25.9 percent of people have some kind of functional impairment *1, and refugees with disabilities have more difficulty having their medical and social needs fulfilled than those without disabilities.

JICA is dispatching experts with disabilities to allow people with disabilities to overcome through their own power, the difficulties refugees with disabilities face. These experts carried out initiatives that include the following: 1. a workshop to set up peer support groups in which people with disabilities can help one another, 2. a peer counseling seminar to allow people who face common difficulties to talk to one another as equals and recover their self-confidence, and 3. training for facilitators who help people learn by discovery about equality for people with disabilities.

When the assistance first began, many of the refugees said such things as "We're refugees so there's nothing we can do." However, gradually their understanding and knowledge of disabilities deepened and a change came about in their thinking. They began to think "it is because we are refugees that we can understand other refugees" and "I want to support other people with disabilities." Now Syrian refugees with disabilities have formed a group, and they are carrying out such activities as training on equality for people with disabilities, peer counseling and sports, in order to support other people with disabilities.

Thirty-three people participated in the workshop, and that successful experience gave the group a lot of confidence. JICA will continue providing cooperation for cultivating leaders and promoting social participation by people with disabilities, so that the lives of Syrian refugees with disabilities will be the best they can be, and so that the perspective of people with disabilities will be reflected in efforts to build up the nation of Syria in the future.