I joined the Questscope team earlier this year, motivated by a desire to meet the forgotten people of my country. My first field visit was to a community center in Zarqa, a dusty desert city marked by a complex social structure; a network of army bases, widespread poverty, and far too many marginalized children. 

The community center, Khawla bint Al Azwar (KbA), a center for women, run by women, was established in 2004 with Questscope’s support. The center gives a second chance to young girls who have dropped out of school by offering Informal/Non-Formal Education Programs and vocational training. 

Facilitators trained by Questscope work closely with each young lady to help develop resilience, understanding, and character, to enhance literacy and basic skills, and to empower her to reach her full potential. KbA believes that individuals hold the solutions to their own problems, and that therefore the first step to improving a girl’s life is simply to listen to her.

When we arrived at KbA this November, we were invited to an informal education session on hygiene attended by about fifteen teenagers.  As everyone introduced themselves to their visitors, 18-year-old Farah didn’t speak. She smiled, tried to say something, then stuttered so badly, murmuring that she couldn’t do it, and she gave up. The other girls offered her their support, wrapping their arms around her, encouraging her to speak, and gently accepting her silence as her turn went by. After the session, intrigued by this young woman who was so well supported by her friends, I spoke to Farah privately and learned her story.

Farah’s family is poor, and her family life has been difficult. She has five siblings. Her father works at a construction site for meager pay. Farah left school at age fourteen not knowing how to read or write due to a learning disability. She enjoyed her Arabic classes, but was never a particularly strong student, and hated school.

“I am scared of school,” she told me.

Her teachers were not equipped to deal with her learning disabilities, and Farah was verbally and physically abused in the classroom. When Farah decided to leave school, her family, distracted by poverty and hardship, did not insist that she stay. For years Farah stayed at home, helping her mother with housework and secluded from the outside world.

When Farah joined KbA Informal Education program, still bearing the scars of her school experience, she was scared of everything and everyone. Farah was the insecure girl hiding in the corner, hoping that no one would call on her. But she never missed a class. Over time, as she continued to attend classes at the center, Farah became the most active student in the program. She did so well in the informal education program that she was referred to the more challenging Non-Formal Education program, and began to attend the center’s vocational training program as well.

Today Farah is literate, and is training to become a seamstress. She has friends at the center, with whom she plays on the swings in the garden outside. Today, Farah talks. For the first time in her life, her opinion matters.

How did this transformation happen? Dr. Curt Rhodes, Founder and General Director of Questscope, says that, “You don’t give people their dignity; they have it. Your task is to recognize it and respond to it.” Farah’s innate dignity has been recognized at KbA.

Farah’s name means happiness in Arabic.  But for years she was not happiness.  However, as Farah continues to develop and grow, she is coming to understand herself in a new way; her true name, happiness, describes her much better these days. 

And this is one of the people I have met as I get to know the forgotten people of my country.

- Muna Haddad, Questscope Volunteer.