JREDS IN AQABA
The Jordan Royal Ecological Diving Society (JREDS pronounced "jayreds") has changed its name and is now known at the Royal Marine Conservation Society. Its stated mission is "the conservation, rehabilitation and enhancement of the marine eco-system in the Gulf of Aqaba through grass roots participation, lobbying, awareness generation and the development of technical development"
One of its spinoffs is the "Women Income Generation Project" which was originally limited to the wives and daughters of fishermen in Aqaba but which has now spread out to any women there.
It works through a series of apprentice ships lasting 3 months during which the women are guaranteed a salary of 80JD a month, plus whatever the employer chooses to add. This is very good money for a woman working in Jordan, and there is considerable competition for a place. At the end of this apprenticeship the best of the girls are employed by the workshop of the Project; at present there are seven of them there, but there are plans to increase this to ten or twelve workers. Some of the qualified women work from home and there is also a local placement agency.
The girls learn the usual handicraft skills : sewing and embroidery are among the foremost.
The project director and consultant is Doris Ghneim, a German woman who has been living in Jordan for many years. Originally married to a Jordanian, she remained here after his death, and her work in Aqaba and also in Feinan in Wadi Araba is remarkable.
Among the objects produced for sale are leather covered notebooks (see the Feinan project lower down), book covers, ornamental boxes and bags: both plain ones with beautifully finished interiors, and decoratively embroidered ones. Other objects include cushion covers, both painted and embroidered and candles which are used in the Feinan Lodge by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN).
Also produced are cases for cards as you see above here, and for a copy of the Koran.
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Doris puts a lot of importance on the quality control which is severe.
Doris and her women have also participated in a couple of historical films which were made on location in Aqaba : they made all the costumes, using a lot of leather, and the costumes were judged highly authentic.
She is also buying up as many of the old dresses embroidered by the Jordanian women for many years, and is using the embroidery on new "dishdashas", mainly for sale to tourists. These dresses, many of them heavily embroidered are showing the years spent in working on the terraces with crops and with the family goats, but in most cases the embroidery is intact and can be carefully removed and re-used.
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Here you can see the bodices of two old dishdashas which will be used on new dresses. On the left the bodice has been removed and is being attached to a new backing : the old one has disintegrated over the years, but you can see how beautiful the embroidery is. On the right, the dress has been carefully washed and cleaned and now the bodice is to be taken out - this will be a difficult operation as you can see. Notice the difference in the size of the stitches on the two: the dress on the left is considerably older and the stitches are much smaller.
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Smaller pieces of embroidery, often decorating a sleeve of a dress, are used on tee shirts as you see above.
I
had hoped to visit her workshop and see the women working there, and talk to
them, but unfortunately I chose a day when they were all attending a course.
Perhaps next time....
The girls work altogether in a common workshop with materials and finished articles neatly stacked on shelves.
The workshop is some considerable distance from the centre of the town, which must not make operations easier. "Rents" I was told, "are very high indeed in Aqaba".
The finished products are sold in the JREDS office showroom, in the workroom of course and in a number of souvenir shops and artisanal outlets througout Jordan - including Made in Jordan in Petra.
The JREDS website www.jreds.org/index.htm gives a good deal of detail about the original aims of the society and of its successes in cleaning up much of the Red Sea coast near to Aqaba. "Cleaning groups" have been recruited to collect the accumulated rubbish, both on the reefs by divers, and on the shoreline. They also work closely with the Marine Peace Park (see comments on the page about diving). Unfortunately this website has not been updated since 2001, but I understand that a new site is in preparation using the new name the Royal Marine Conservation Society.
Doris is also very much involved in her work in Feinan, which should really come under a page devoted to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. Since right now there isn't one, I am mentioning it here.
The Feinan Goat Leather Project
Goats notoriously eat anything, and their uncontrolled presence almost invariably destroys vegetal cover of the soil, making it more vulnerable than ever to erosion. The increasing quantities of goats in the Dana Nature Reserve created a considerable problem for the RSCN. It was impossible to limit their numbers, since the Bedouin depend on these animals for their livelihood.
They called in Doris Ghneim who had experience of leather manufacture in Germany. The project was begun in 1999 with six women working two days a week in a tent. Soon the project was moved into two rooms, the first room was for curing the goatskin, the second for working on the leather.
Funds were raised from the Amman Rotary Club Cosmopolitan and from the American Church in Amman. The RSCN provided the tools and a small salary for the women. As far as possible, traditional methods are used to clean the skins and to treat the leather.
The project has grown now to nine women working three days a week, and has reached the point where it can cover its costs. Among the objects made by the workers are belts, photo frames, books covers and cushions, all designed by Doris. They are sold in RSCN shops in different parts of Jordan, in many hotel shops, and in "Made in Jordan" in Petra.
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JREDS can be found in
Amman at
PO Box 831051 Amman 11183 Jordan.
Telfax (962 6) 06 5676183 and 06
5676173
Email information@jreds.org
and in Aqaba at
PO Box 2353 Aqaba Jordan.
Telfax (962 3) 202 2995
Email: Aqaba@jreds.org
Doris's personal mobile phone number is 0795.5007.045 and her email dghneim@index.com.jo