“Whack!  Ouch! That was how my day started once when I was late for work.  My boss threw a hammer at me which bounced off my arm. I was 13.” Hazim is one of more than 30,000 young people in Jordan who have dropped out of school and ended up in the dead-end life of a child laborer.

Hazim dropped out when he was 11 years old: bored stiff.  School wasn’t where he was at, and his teachers were not interested in him.  He hung out at home until finally his older sister lashed out at him one day, “Are you going to sit around like a bum or help out the family?” That was the beginning of his career as a young wage earner.

His 12 hours a day job at a car repair shop brought in $10 a week.  It didn’t take long until he was desperate to get out.  He tried going back to school, but he was outside the three-year time limit for a dropout to re-enroll. No way to get back.  

“I used to think I was better than my friends who were in school, but I realized that to make something out of myself, I needed to be able to read and write too.”

That was when Hazim discovered the Questscope Non-Formal Education program – designed to give him a second chance to get his diploma through a government certified alternative study program. Now, he is only months away from graduating with that diploma.

Today Hazim is a vibrant, outspoken, and outgoing 18 year old young man. You are likely to spot him walking around his neighborhood on the outskirts of the Gaza refugee camp in Jerash reciting his latest Arabic lesson, or even more likely to find him sitting with one of his old friends, sharing his regrets and his successes, and leaning on them hard to stay in school.

When he speaks today you see an individual who feels confident, and full of life – he has a future before him, not a dead-end. But what is so special about Hazim is his gratitude: he fully understands the meaning of the second chance that he got with Questscope.  “I would have given anything for one day back at school, but that was not an option. The NFE program was just what I needed. You don’t understand how great it feels now to be able to read and write like the rest of my friends. It made me a better person inside.”

Questscope is privileged and grateful for the opportunity to serve young people like Hazim.  They inspire us, change us, and call out an even deeper commitment to put the last, first.  Your generosity and faithful support continue to help rewrite a story that is bigger than all of us.