The Zaatari Refugee Camp: Infrastucure And Survival

The Zaatari refugee camp: infrastucure and survival

Infrastructure

The infrastructure in the Zaatari field is a great determinant of the safety and protection of refugees. While a high percentage of these declares to feel safe in the field in general terms, these figures vary greatly when we consider concrete spaces of the field.

This infrastructure is largely related to the mobility and habitability of refugees, as well as the provision of services. We then analyze both the infrastructure related to the services provided in the common spaces of the field and the spaces that are more related to the privacy of the refugees. Common spaces are referred to water infrastructure, sanitation and hygiene (showers and latrines), community kitchens and schools. The latter refer to homes, which should create spaces where the intimacy and privacy of refugees are respected.

The reasons for fear within the field are based on the lack of light, on the presence of men who wore the bathrooms and showers, the shortage of hygiene in the facilities and rumors. This causes many women to be forced to develop strategies to increase their safety, such as limiting the use of latrines and showers or leaving only during the day. Many families build their own latrines and showers in search of their safety and for this they subtract materials from prefabricated, which ends up affecting the general state of common spaces. As a consequence of the theft of prefabricated materials, the insecurity and fear of women increases when they go to the bathroom and showers, since there are facilities without doors or locks.

This has caused women to form groups to go to showers and latrines and do not leave during the night.

Likewise, the appropriation of the electricity supply by some people through illegal connections leaves other areas of the field without the same, promoting spaces of insecurity for women who are in the streets at night. These prefabricated homes have a supply for a maximum of twelve hours a day obtained from a photovoltaic solar power generation plant built on the outskirts of the field mostly funded by the KFW Development Bank with funds from the German federal government, which granted 15 million euros to theProject.

Gas containers of community kitchens are also sometimes stolen to build cooking spaces in residences. This added to the lack of lighting both inside and in the exterior spaces of the kitchen, cause insecurity among refugees and limit the use of these facilities. The fact that community kitchens are closed from the afternoon to dawn can be an incentive for refugees to build their own kitchens with community material.

Women in refugee fields are intimidated by the amount of windows they have in their stores, since they reduce their privacy and increase insecurity, especially if they lack bars. In addition, living conditions are generating anxiety due to the low privacy that women possess in them, since all relatives live in the same room, being able to live together in the same space occupied by Futones.

Due to the little privacy that parents enjoy at home, it is commonpart of the parents so that they obey.

On the other hand, it is convenient to analyze the own distribution of the Zaatari field. A map of this distribution can be seen in Annex 2. In it, the poor distribution of many basic services such as health centers, schools and nurseries, water points or food distribution centers, which are mostly located in districts three, four and five. For example, those who live in district two or six of the field do not have these services in their proximity, so they want to enjoy any of them, they require long displacements within the field. In the literature it is very common to find situations of harassment or abuse both verbal and physical or psychological to girls in the streets, this being more likely in the long ways they have to travel, alone on many occasions, to go to theschools. This situation is also aggravated for women who need water or a sanitary service, especially at night, due to the vulnerability situation that they suffer due to the lack of electricity supply in the streets, which was previously spoken.

In Syria, just as men and boys did play on the streets, girls do not. This situation has changed in the Zaatari field for many of them, to which the National Soccer team of Jordan taught the girls to play, which have exclusive fields for them that guarantee their security. This initiative was also promoted by a mother who was a coach in Syria and fled to Syria with her daughters, whose goal is to empower girls.

Cooperation Program in Zaatari: A Women’s Oasis

Within the ‘Women and Girls Oasis’ program of the United Nations, the first Oasis center was founded in the Zaatari refugee field through the UNIT WOMEN CENTER and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), partariado to which the World Food Program (WFP) was associated in 2015. The objectives of the program, which currently has three Oasis centers in Zaatari, are: allow the economic empowerment of women combining accredited professional training with a monetary remuneration of activities within the project itself. Second, it aspires to increase awareness of gender violence at the same time to prevent it and, finally, it is tried to work both individual and community resilience through the transmission of leadership skills to women and initiatives that implyMen in gender equality strategies.

Through the three existing oasis centers in Zaatari, 170 women work and get a salary (incentive work), which many more people benefit. The program has three safe spaces for women and their daughters and sons, reaching a total of 500 users per center and month. These centers provide training skills such as language, technological, tailoring, handicraft or training skills workshops in communicative skills. As part of the program, information, awareness and protection activities are also included in terms of administrative, health, health and gender and sexual violence issues. Transversely skills related to the raising of sons and daughters are transmitted and the acquisition of skills to provide school support. Oasis centers also facilitate access to nursery and school services for the smallest and smallest in the family in order to prevent women from taking care of them in their homes.

The work project for a Women in Zaatari, developed through the Oasis, is the largest project of this type aimed at women within the field. The project framework focuses not only on humanitarian action, but also links it with development approaches that guarantee a sustainable transformation in women’s lives and their respective communities. The project meets the needs of each individual by putting single women, widows and mothers head of the family, as well as those in charge of vulnerable dependent people. In addition, through the project, women enjoy security spaces in which to express themselves freely, where they share their experiences and identify their own needs and priorities, increasing control over their lives.

On the impact of the project in which the Oasis centers are framed, a study carried out by two professors from the University of Jordan, Sinaria Abdel Jabbar and Haidar Ibrahim Zaza, for the International Magazine of Adolescence and Youth (InternationalJournal of Adolescence and Youth) between 2014 and 2015 through surveys to the participants, whose model can be seen in Annex 2.

According to this study, among the activities that most dominated these women were tailoring, followed by hairdressing and artisanal activities, while if they were asked about those who wanted% English classes and 8% tailoring. As for the usefulness of what has been learned, 76 % had to take advantage of. In addition, the study showed that women had seen their expectations fulfilled such as the provision to their families with economic resources, meet new companions and friends in which to support and increase their training and experience as well as the satisfaction of psychological needs,security and belonging to a group.

However, the study concludes that being a refugee/ refugee determines an opportunity for deconstruction of patterns and power relations that are established in a community and can offer an occasion of alteration related to pre -existing gender roles. In addition, it reaffirms that access to media empowers women, determining an increase in their decision making. It is also observed that these training activities have an impact on the improvement of nutrition, the decrease in poverty and exploitation, reducing mortality rates.

Among the recommendations provided by project analysis, the importance of expanding training activities, giving them autonomy to decide to form and trying to increase environmental consciousness, as well as the need to extend work activities outside the centers. In addition, the self-sufficient program is emphasized through the formation of women to implement the training activities themselves.

As for the program, we have observed that it has an intersectional perspective that takes into account gender on the one hand, as well as marital status, prioritizing within it those most vulnerable groups, and age, covering a broad spectrum with interests and needsvaried. On the other hand, people who obtain benefits from this program are multiple and varied, since if a mother has access to a job and monetary compensation, their children can go to school, so their day today is carried out in a safe space, in addition to promoting your education. Also, this monetary remuneration benefits a large number of people who may also be in a vulnerability situation, such as food store owners. This fact is very important since it strengthens the roots and possible expansion of the program.

Conclusions

After analyzing gender relations prior to the conflict in Syria as well as the transformations that arise in them from the displacement of refugees, we can draw some conclusions. The changes in the lifestyle, mobility and limitations that arise after the displacement of refugees leads them to rethink basic aspects of their identity. Because of this, changes in traditional roles are appreciated, leading women to assume tasks of the productive role as income suppliers or family heads, and men of the reproductive role when they are the ones who collect food and materials that distribute humanitarian workers. Traditional gender roles sometimes are also reinforced or little transformed in the field through street leaders and the interaction of refugees with the infrastructure of the field, which greatly limits the mobility of women in the field of the field.

However, a subsequent analysis of those causes that motivate changes in traditional roles and gender relations in the field to investigate how these affect power relations should be made. While it is true that we have proven that women perform tasks of the productive role and men of the reproductive, we might think that in a space such as the Zaatari refugee field, where the job opportunities and the productive fabric are very small, there may be interests that interests may exist that interests that interests that interests mayThey guide these changes and that do not really question power relations between men and women.

Finally, we have analyzed a cooperation project that occurs in the field in order to economically empower women and influence traditional roles both inside and outside the family. In addition, these spaces offer security, exchange of experiences and support among women, increasing their resilience and control over their lives, a very important fact in the framework of transformation. Likewise, the project affects more people, since it activates the economy of the field because these women stop depending on humanitarian aid and begin to buy goods from the small stores in the field, increasing the resilience of the project. It is important to highlight the idea of how cooperation projects can influence the change of these roles, helping to glimpse a deeply rooted problem in society. In this sense, the project of a Women Oasis seems successful and complete, since it not only focuses on empowerment