CRP was founded in Jordan in 2006 to serve Iraqi refugees fleeing violent conflict and continues to support this community, which makes up the most significant proportion of our beneficiaries. Our mission is to promote social cohesion, strengthen communities, and foster resilience by creating an environment that supports individual growth and economic opportunity. CRP’s holistic approach combines humanitarian and cash-for-work aid, learning and leadership opportunities, and community-building to help individuals heal from trauma and become more resilient members of society. Most of our programs, led by volunteers and community leaders, facilitate growth, leadership, and empowerment from within the community.
Like so many others, CRP’s work was severely affected by the ongoing pandemic. We took different measures to ensure the continuation of our programs while adhering to the health situation in Jordan, such as lockdowns and social distancing measures introduced by the Jordanian government. In Hashemi Shamali and Downtown Amman, our two community centers are integral community institutions frequented by Iraqis and Jordanians alike. Since the pandemic’s start, we have successfully designed and implemented hybrid (in-person and online) and solely online programs. 
Covid-19 made it necessary for CRP to increase our outreach activities significantly to ensure community protection and well-being. We have also had to thoughtfully design, migrate, coordinate, and implement programs online due to our community centers’ inability to conduct activities. We have done so with great success, to the extent that 80% of the programs we were running in person before Covid-19 are now offered online, with an average of 1,683 online participant visits monthly. We have developed other approaches for staff, volunteers, and program beneficiaries to communicate with one another outside of regular activities as a means of PSS (Psychosocial Support) and community support.
We are currently seeing a tendency of ‘getting back to normal’ as the vaccination campaign in Jordan kicks in and lockdown measures are revised or withdrawn. Some of our activities and programs have been able to resume psychically to the great joy of the volunteers who run the programs and the community we serve.
As of September 1st, our Hope Workshop, a craft collective that provides refugee women a space to collaborate, create, and socialize, while earning much-needed additional income for their households, was finally being held at our Community Center once again.
“Working in the kitchen allowed me to meet others and develop important relationships as well as make money for my family.” – Nadia, Syria
Programs such as Beauty School, Sports for All, and Parent’s Awareness have also resumed psychically over the summer, with participants finally thrilled to be back together. Even with everything slowly getting back to normal, CRP still focuses on what we have learned from the past year and a half of the pandemic. We always strive to develop and learn from our experiences, and Covid-19 is no exception. As CRP’s Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) coordinator, Zeid Habjoka earlier on has stated, “We are currently taking the lessons that have been learned during the lockdown and looking forward to using the experience gained; as a result, to improve CRP as a whole.”
Lastly, CRP’s robust organizational Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) staff provide qualitative and quantitative data and insight on the entirety of CRP’s programming. We are a data-driven organization with a data and MEL team that ensures program impact and develops and adjusts programs and activities based on beneficiary feedback. Our MEL staff ensure the quality of our programs, activities, and training. MEL, of course, plays an integral role in ensuring that our activities – those still affected by the pandemic and those that are now more or less ‘back to normal’- keep making an essential contribution to our community and keep evolving the benefit of the participants.