First week...

My first days in Amman have been very busy meeting others and getting adjusted. I was picked up at the airport by Barbara Zadina, an HKS and MPP grad (!), who has been working in Amman for the past 8 years. Barbara recently coordinated Obama's visit to Jordan. As I took in my first views of Amman, it was exciting to hear about Obama's time here in the capital and Barbara's Herculean efforts to guide his large staff during their stay.

I've been working for several days at the Noor Al Hussein Foundation. My colleagues are wonderful -- they treat one another like family. Dr. Manal Tahtamouni, the Director of the Noor Foundation's Institute for Family Health, is my supervisor. I am grateful as I could not have asked to work with a more capable and warm human being.

A bit of background on the Noor Foundation (http://www.nooralhusseinfoundation.org/): It was
was established by Royal Decree in 1985 to help improve the overall quality of life of Jordanians by responding to their diverse socio-economic needs. The foundation is chaired by Queen Noor and runs a diverse set of programs across five main areas: community development, women and enterprise development, micro-finance, child and family health, as well as the arts.
In 1986, the Foundation established the Institute for Family Health (IFH) to provide health care services to mothers and children. As the Institute grew, it began to place special emphasis on women through the Women’s Health Counseling Center. More recently in 2006, the IFH started providing services to displaced Iraqis, a greatly underserved population. The Institute currently has over 165 volunteers who conduct home visits to reach out to Iraqis.

Over the past few days, Dr. Tahtamouni has introduced me to the IFH's work. The Institute offers over 24 different services – encompassing medical, psychological counseling, legal -- with a full-time staff of 55. Although its own entity, IFH often partners with other NGOs and agencies like CARE, UNHCR, and IRD. Such agencies provide 50% of operating costs. The sustainability of IFH's funding is a continual concern and something Manal and I plan to discuss more in the coming weeks.

Today, I visited Al Salt with 2 of IFH's field workers. Al Salt was once the ancient capital of Jordan and is a 30 minute drive west of Amman. We visited four local community-based organizations (including the Al-Balqa Women Cooperative Society and Rawabi al- Salt) which are IFH implementing partners that focus on sexual reproductive health and prevention of gender-based violence. For this particular project, IFH in essence "trains the trainers" by providing workshops to these local organizations which can then implement trainings at the community level. My colleagues asked me to create an "action plan" for future trainings so it was helpful to visit several of the NGOs who will participate. Tomorrow, I'll meet with the Executive Director of the Noor Foundation to gain a more holistic view of the Foundation's work...

On a side note, I'm staying at the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in East Amman (http://www.bu.edu/acor/). ACOR is the largest research institute in Amman for archaeological, social, and scientific research. The place is full of archaeologists, other graduate students, and folks of all ages learning Arabic. It's been a good place to get my footing here...