Disaster Response Jordan Project #16466

Social Health Care for Healing Syrian Refugees

by International Humanistic Psychology Association

Project Report | Oct 13, 2016
Therapeutic Bears

By Steve Olweean and Myron Eshowsky | co directors, SHC

The Teddy Bear Project

We were recently approached by the

Caring for Children organization. They are donating 5,000 teddy bears to SHC which will be shipped to Aqaba, Jordan. The bears are 11 inches in size with a smiling face, a soft plush weighted bottom so they can sit easily. A special pouch in the back will be added on so the children can put little items that are treasures for them.

Ultimately the organization is hoping to design a digital device where the child can engage in interactive programming to reduce trauma, help with anger management and social skills. The teddy bears will be used by CBI as therapy aids in conducting psycho-social treatment for traumatized refugee children. SHC Psychologists at the university level will also oversee content development and educators for content delivery.Caring for Children will cover the costs of the bears, shipping to Aqaba, and custom fees. SHC will be responsible for the additional costs of shipping them to the Amman and Irbid region where the largest number of Syrian refugees reside.

Donate Here

Syrian Mothers Cookbook Project

In our upcoming visit to Jordan in mid October, we will be collecting recipes from refugee families. The chosen recipes will be ones that are special to each of the families and will include stories about the food. Also included will be pictures and poems written by different refugees. All proceeds from the cookbook sales will go into a cooperative fund that has been created to help mothers and their children who are living in the apartment complex (40 families led by widowed mothers) served by Social Health Care.

Refugees who are living in Jordan are not allowed to be employed. This project allows the mothers an opportunity to earn some needed funds to provide for their children. Additional art and other products will be added to the co-op to help the mothers create a cottage industry. These proceeds will help fund a semester of school for each child, with hopes of funding an entire year. The cottage industry projects are intended to help pay for the children's schooling in the future as well, as many have only had sporadic, or in some cases, no education for 5 years now. Details will be made available in our next report as we return with materials to be used for book design and production.

Back to all project reports

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.