While CRP’s beneficiaries are predominately from Syria and Iraq, there has been a growing Sudanese refugee community here in East Amman in the Ashrafiyyeh and Jofeh neighborhoods. These new beneficiaries are even more underserved than other refugee communities in Jordan and receive even less attention both here on the ground and in international publications.
Many of these Sudanese refugees are from the Darfur region of Sudan. They flee their home country, which has been embroiled in conflict and genocide for more than a decade, to seek safety and security in Amman. These refugees are too far away from our center in the Hashemi Shemali neighborhood, however, and cannot afford the taxi fare travel to CRP. With this in mind, we go to their neighborhoods to distribute food vouchers.
We work with a grocery store in Jofeh where we hand out food the vouchers, which have a set amount of money on them. After we hand out the vouchers, our beneficiaries can use them at select grocery stores CRP has agreements with. The June 18th distribution gave vouchers to 40 families, with 61 adults and 42 children. Beneficiaries can decide how to spend their vouchers in the store, each family understanding their own basic needs best. They commonly buy cooking oil, dried beans, flour, spices, sugar, and other staples.
As the men and women lined up in the hot sun to get their food vouchers one older woman named Aseel pulled out her medical card to explain that even though her medications are covered by the UNHCR, she still needs food vouchers to just get by. Another man named Amjed said, “I am very happy” when asked about being able to get food vouchers from CRP. We hope to expand our work with the Sudanese community here in Amman.
