ANERA to Help Needy Students in Jordan

Washington, DC | December 22, 2009 - ANERA (American Near East Refugee Agency) is pleased to announce a $411,000 grant from UNESCO to help improve learning skills for vulnerable Iraqi and Jordanian students in Jordan.

This is ANERA's first collaboration with UNESCO, which is trying to ease the pressure on Jordan's public education system to provide expanded services for students at risk.

Under the program, ANERA is organizing after-school programs in three schools in the greater Amman area in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. The remedial classes will reach 700 children aged six to 18, half of whom will be displaced Iraqis. ANERA is also providing nutritious snacks for participating students.

ANERA president Bill Corcoran welcomed the opportunity to provide the much-needed academic support. "We are reaching out to vulnerable youth to help keep them in school and provide some of the building blocks for a productive future."

ANERA has been providing educational support for displaced Iraqi children since 2007, working in low-income neighborhoods of Amman and Zarqa.

In 2007, Jordan lifted restrictions on school attendance for Iraqi children lacking a residency permit but the government estimates that only eight out of ten Iraqi children attend school. A large number have inadequate educational and emotional preparation because of interrupted years during the Iraqi violence, financial and other restraints. One out of five drops out after primary school.

About ANERA

For more than 40 years, ANERA has been a leading provider of development, health, education and employment programs to Palestinian communities and impoverished families throughout the Middle East. In FY 2009, the relief and development agency delivered more than $50 million of programs to the people of the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan.

Since opening its Jordan office in 2004, ANERA has worked with local women's groups in income-earning activities, provided scholarships for underprivileged children and provided in-kind medical assistance through the Ministry of Health and the Jordan Red Crescent Society.