“I come here every once in a while to update CRP about my situation to see how they could help me,” says Sana'. She comes to update her situation at Muraja'at roughly every six months.
CRP holds Muraja’at a few times a week. It is a drop-in session for beneficiaries who want to update their current situation, lodge a complaint, or who suddenly need unexpected help. CRP's staff is small, so we give each person a number and cap Muraja'at around 50 people or families. Because of this, people start lining up well before CRP opens. Those who don't get a number can come back later in the week.
Those who get a number wait until it's called to sit down and talk to one of our staff members about their lives and what challenges they’re facing to see if we are able to help them.
CRP is currently helping around 700 families on a month, with a total of 293 of those families receiving monthly or semi-monthly food vouchers. Muraja’at helps us keep track of all these cases.
We recently developed a center operations app that we use to keep track and organize of all the beneficiaries cases. It helps us keep track of the aid we have provided for each family.
It’s very important to have these sessions to make sure we are aware of emergency cases and people who have special needs that need to be addressed immediately. In these cases, we issue an emergency voucher for families in need. Muraja’at also helps us reassess each family’s situation in order to determine how often they get they are getting the coupons.
In some other cases, we send two of our staff members to visit the families’ homes to take a closer look at their situation and needs. This helps assess their needs.
Muraja’at is the first step to help integrate refugees into CRP’s community by introducing them to the community center and informing them on what new activities or programs they can join, This helps keep the community center lively and the making sure that the programs reach as many people as possible.
While the people coming in for Muraja’at have to wait a couple of hours for their turn, this creates a good opportunity for beneficiaries to meet other people in a similar situation who they can relate to. This especially applies to people who have recently moved to Jordan and don’t know anybody here. We also use the opportunity to tell them about new programs at CRP.
Muraja’at is the best way for beneficiaries to get to directly contact CRP about their situation.
“Sitting down and talking to these people gives them some peace of mind and help ease their frustration, and our direct communication with the beneficiaries helps work with some level of transparency which builds trust between us and the beneficiaries,” says Aseel one of our staff members.
Though he smiled for us, Qais came to Muraja’at with a grievance. "I feel like they forgot about me, I haven't gotten a coupon in a year,” he says. CRP staff have access to every distribution at their fingertips and can verify that that is true. They took down the particulars of Qais’s situation and that helps determine if he’s eligible for more assistance.
So often, however, people come to Muraja’at because they need more assistance than CRP is able to provide. Help us reach more of these families. Please, become a monthly donor today. We need to sign up 10 new or increased monthly donors this week to help CRP reach our goal. If you are already a monthly donor, thank you! If you'd like to increase your monthly donation, simply click here.