Yesterday CRP staff visited a local grocery store in the neighborhood of Jufa, home to a large population of Sudanese refugees, to distribute food vouchers. Additional families who had not previously registered with CRP came to the distribution seeking help, and CRP was able to negotiate an agreement with the grocer to provide additional vouchers to families in need. The vouchers went to 19 different Sudanese families, and will help feed 32 adults and 40 children.
Many Sudanese refugees have come to Amman over the last three years fleeing the conflict in Darfur. According to the 2016 UNHCR Fact Sheet, there are over 3,000 Sudanese refugees in Jordan, most of who reside in working class urban areas like Jufa.
CRP’s food voucher program serves over 300 families in Amman every month, most of whom are Iraqi and Syrian refugees. The decision to expand CRP’s services to the Sudanese population of Jufa comes amidst ongoing controversy over lack of employment opportunities for Sudanese, and a perception of more assistance provided to Syrian and Iraqis by UNHCR.
With many NGO’s in Amman dedicated exclusively to mitigating the Syrian refugee crisis, smaller refugee populations, such as the Sudanese, can be overshadowed in the headlines and in terms of the assistance they receive.
One of the guiding principles of CRP’s mission is to help where needed, and the Sudanese refugee community is no exception. The CRP community center serves as a place where diverse refugee communities can come together to begin to rebuild a non-sectarian and neighborly community for themselves. However, it is difficult for many Sudanese refugees to travel to the center, so this time, CRP went to them.
Without CRP’s monthly food vouchers, many families in our community would have to beg for food or go without. CRP hopes to make food voucher distributions in Jufa a new component of its monthly food voucher program as we continue to serve all communities in need here in Amman.
