Collateral Repair Podcast

With the fall slowly approaching, the CRP summer camp ends and kids are slowly returning back to school to begin a new school year. This is why we have decided to make the education of kids, and especially teens, the focal point of this episode. Displaced children face many barriers when integrating into a school system in a different country, and CRP is trying to ease the pressure of all the changes by providing a number of programs for kids and teens. First, our  Community Center Programs Manager Jessie will fill you in on the situation in Jordan with regards to the education of displaced children. After that, you will hear about the unique CRP program “Teen All-Stars” from its coordinator Alaa, and to wrap up, two of the teens from the program will share their experiences from it.

In our tenth episode, we're talking about English. English is a cornerstone of opportunity for refugees at CRP and all over Amman. Our first interview is with Sameer, 20, from Homs, Syria, who began taking classes at CRP almost two years ago and is now nearly fluent. We explore Sameer's backstory fleeing Homs and coming to Jordan, and why he decided to focus on learning English so intensively, as many refugees do. We also sit down with Megan Mcgeough, the English class coordinator at CRP to discuss her responsibilities and challenges with teaching English as well as the positive and negative implications of English's influence in Amman and around the world. 

For this special holiday episode, we have four, shorter interviews with beneficiaries and volunteers at Collateral Repair Project about their own traditions and takeaways concerning the month of Ramadan. We focus on the differences on Ramadan in Jordan versus their home countries as well as their own exploration of what giving back during this month means to them, specifically through CRP.

For the eighth episode of the Collateral Repair Podcast, we talk about Christian refugees in Iraq who had to flee their homes due to religious extremism. We sit down with Nasir, who was given three options when the Islamic State invaded his home of Qaraqosh, pay a tax, convert or be killed. He also talks about fleeing to Kurdistan, and being cornered in a larger political argument, as he was asked to support the Kurdish referendum for independence, something that would jeopardize his safety as an Iraqi, or once again face threats against his and his family’s wellbeing. We also discuss Nasir’s background as a photographer, and his job taking photos of his hometown after ISIS left.

In our seventh episode, Waseem, a Sudanese refugee from Darfur, tells his story of leaving his home in 2003 before finally making it to Amman over a decade later. Sudanese refugees are some of the most underserved refugees in Jordan, particularly because the conflict in Darfur receives little media attention. We also talk to Aaron Williams, co-founder of the NGO Sawiyan, which is one of the only other nonprofits in Jordan aimed at helping East African refugees.

This episode marks the launch of the Collateral Repair Podcast, a new platform from Collateral Repair Project to tell the stories of refugees living in Amman, Jordan. We begin our program with an episode on education, a critical and complex factor in refugee children’s lives after displacement. You will hear from Suleiman, an Iraqi teen who took a singularly unique education path, and Karam Hayef, CRP’s Education Specialist.   

In our second episode of the Collateral Repair Podcast, we discuss orientation and identity in the refugee context. We explore challenges refugees face and hear from Waseem, a young man who fled Iraq and is trying to build a life as he comes into his own here in Amman. You’ll also hear from Suhail, an expert in community building and Sexual and Gender-based violence.

The third episode of the Collateral Repair Project Podcast sheds light on an important issue that Refugees go through; starting a family in a host country. To start with, we talk to Sara from Syria about her experience of motherhood in an unfamiliar environment. Then you’ll hear from human rights lawyer Peter Stavros and learn his thoughts on human rights and child protection.

In our fourth episode of the Collateral Repair Podcast, we examine the daunting challenges refugees go through when looking for work. Emad, a Syrian who crossed the border into Jordan in 2012, walks us through his job hunting experiences in Amman. After that, Anas Al Chalabi, who is an NGO consultant with UN, explains the differences between Syrian and Iraqi refugee employment issues.

For our last episode of the year, we sit down with Amanda Lane who is the Executive Director at Collateral Repair Project, and reflect on how far the organization has come since her arrival. We also talk about CRP’s future plans, the new center, and what’s in store for 2019.

In the sixth episode we talk about winter. Munah, an Iraqi refugee who came to Jordan with her two sons a few years ago, talks to us about her experiences of trying to settle in a new country during winter, and the stresses it induced in her family. Following that, we talk to a team of mental health professionals from Médicine Sans Frontières about mental health challenges refugees suffer, which are exacerbated during the winter months.