Author: Daniel Maz

In the beginning the ending seems so far away….

In the beginning you never think how much you will want one more minute in a busy street, or in an overcrowded cab that clearly didn’t fit all six of us. How much you will actually miss waiting for a cab in a busy street. Or how the air smells like this mixture of spices and foods that you had never tasted before. How much you will want to walk around town one more time. See all the lights and all the colours of the city. In the beginning you never think how fast time will go by. How you will wish you could look all the people and the way they bring the city to life, just one more time. And that everything keeps going on without you… Well, that just too tortuous to think about. I hope Amman forgives me for all the days I cursed my luck, thinking how much I would like to be in my hometown enjoying the summer. Not being an exuberant country, its simple beauty and nature sneak up on you. And by the time I realized it, Jordan had taken an adoring, permanent place in my memory.

It’s an unfair thing, time. At close, it looks infinite. But from a distance, so limited.
I thank CaBuReRa for providing the opportunity to know all the places and all the people I met. These past six months were quite an experience and I’m very happy to have been a part of it.

To all the people with whom I shared this experience and who were my companions for three months, I miss you dearly!

Sara Magalhães

Portuguese TG2 in Jordan

The work developed in MAPS – Movimento de Apoio à Problemática da Sida – is part of a reality with ordinary people whose lives have been transformed.

Through this article you will look more closely to their habits, priorities and ways of living.

The intervention is performed daily by field visits, providing: aseptic material, distribution of preventive material, social and psychological support and information / education related with health.

MAPS intend to engage proactively to the emerging needs of the community, through an ethical imperative that everyone is entitled to a life with dignity.

This is the reality that MAPS team faces every day.

I thank all who made it possible for me to join this wonderful team and I hope that one day humanity will become based on love, compassion, peace, forgiveness, solidarity and goodness.

– Ana Barreto, Portugal

Since the day I get back home (Jordan) and start working with Al Hayat Center, my life style has definitely changed, working with a Team Full of power, passion, and energy, a group of people who work and give from their hearts because they love their Job. Now I myself have become so passionate about my work and my personality got stronger, I also found out that I can work under pressure , I want to prove myself and to my community to show that women can be successful and effective and they have the power to make a change in this world.

Working with RASED for Government Monitoring Project opened for me Doors to get into political life (http://www.hayatcenter.org/programs/rased-accountability-monitoring/), knowing more about our laws, elections, writing reports and focusing on what’s important. I appreciate the fact that Al Hayat team Worked hard with us to build our skills in many fields, and made our experience a constructive one.

Spending those 3 months in Portugal helped me a lot to improve myself, believing in myself was the most important thing for me, it wasn’t my first time to be out of Jordan alone, but it was the first time for me to have the  sense of independence and ambition to be the best.

Living with 8 people from different cultures, thoughts, beliefs, and different life styles showed me that no matter where life puts me I can be myself, and present myself and my country in the best way I Can 🙂

(Sarah, Olivia, Natali, Reem, Baraa, Dalia, Amro, and wisam ) each one of them touched my life and changed me into a better person I’ve learned from each one of them how to think before I speak, how to face the challenges with a smile, to be wise, caring, loving, strong, and responsible as well.

I am blessed to have had this chance and those people in my life… They became my Family 🙂

– Nardeen Sunaa, TG2 in Jordan

CabuReRa was a really great experience in all levels: I had the chance to meet new people from other countries, different backgrounds and experiences, different points of view and all of the experiences in different contexts made me grow as a person.

I also had the chance to work, for the first time, in my field of studies – cultural heritage. I worked in Lebanon with a group of young entrepreneurs that were building a company of cultural tourism. My role was helping them to find the right strategy to grow and to implement themselves in the market. For the first time I felt that what I have studied was useful and that feeling was amazing!

Back to Portugal that feeling grew even more: I started working with a project that is really what I want to do with my life – develop the cultural tourism in Algarve. This project is called The Mediterranean Diet Route (www.rdm.pt) aims to cover not just food/ restaurants but also local products, artisans and heritage!

For me it was very positive to work in this project not just for the project itself but, mostly, because to work with culture in Portugal is very difficult. There is no money and it’s extremely hard to “enter”! The feeling I get is that one door is already opened, I just need to keep working, show my value and hope for another door to open…

Mónica Mendonça

Here I am doing the second part of the internship in my country Palestine, after coming back from Greece which was a magnificent country with its kind people and its amazing landscapes.

Due to the bad circumstance that we “Tg2 Palestinian participants” have faced since the sending organization delayed the continuation of the training because of the financial problem that it was suffering from, which in other way resulted in the limitation of our training only in the organizations or associations next to our houses and as I am living at a small town next to Jerusalem, and this area lacks for the existence of non-governmental organizations, it was difficult for me to find a place to start the local internship in. So I have to begin my internship in a business company that belongs to the private sector.

Siniora Food Industries Company is the company that accepted to host me as a trainee at the Human Resources department. From the first day that I’ve come to the company I started to utilize what I have learned abroad and applied it in the new workplace. I’ve gained much knowledge from them in the field of HR principles, planning and individuals’ management. They introduce me to their company and to the policy that the company follows in recruiting employees, they offered me a separate office at their department with all its equipment.

Most of the work I am doing is secretarial work; and here are some of the duties that I’ve been trained on during the last two months:  inserting transportation bills, survey the employees’ files, setting up new records for new employees, prepare training for the supervisors and their employees, writing official letters issued from the HR department such as: Final Appointment Letter, job evidence letter, health insurance, bank correspondences, inserting each employee assets, irregularities, certificates to the company’s network system in addition to many other duties.

I believe that this internship in and outside my country will add value to my career life. It will give me better chances in the future to apply for big enterprises and organizations or maybe to establish my own business.

This experience has definitely benefited me on both personal and professional levels. Concerning the first one, it let me meet different people from different countries with different cultures and to spend great time with them. For the second approach it developed my knowledge in the field of management in general, and also it introduced me to new concepts and terms in the public relations. So I completely support the idea behind these programs that give youth in this region a great chance to develop their personalities and their knowledge, and it paves the way towards eliminating youth unemployment in the community.

We have on this earth what makes life worth living.
It used to be known as Palestine
it became known as Palestine
my mistress:
I deserve, because you’re my mistress
I deserve life.
Mahmoud Darwish “ Palestinian poet”

Is it Normal to not miss anything about Portugal? Nor to think about that experience?
Is it weird to ask those questions?

While I was reading my friend’s blogs, I realized that I have to speak out about that great experience. Yes I can remember that it was great and it supposed to be unforgettable. May be I have some problems with memorizing?! Who knows!!

But what is that sound!!

Can you hear that!!!

It’s the same sound I hear every day in the morning, during the day after the sun set, it became a part of my life. Can anybody hear that sound!???

It makes me busy thinking all the time, it prevents me from thinking about anything else, even my about friends in Portugal, even thinking about my brother who snores all the night while sleeping.

Am sorry, at this moment it’s hard to remember

“When my father decided to sell our 500.000$ farmhouse, I was so sad because from that house I could see the beach, I could smell the trees, touch the sun, talking with the moon where I usually find myself with my friends dancing all night away. But wait, I still have the place to do that, in my country everybody has such a farmhouse I can go to Fadi’s house. Till our new farmhouse is ready the new one going to be in Haifa, where I usually hang out with my friends”

Shit!!!! That sound appears again it’s so loud this time

Ooops it think one of my friends is screaming,

Me: What Happened?

Fadi: I got shot.

Me: did you shoot yourself while you were playing with that stupid hunting rifle!

Fadi: wake up, move your head or you going to  be dead stupid !

When he slapped me on the face and moved me next to him, I figured out what was that sound

It’s the sound of the OCCUPATION.

And when I read what I wrote about our imaginary farmhouse I burned the notebook, and went to the hospital to see my injured friend, and reading him the news.

STOP

No sound-bite will fix this.
We teach life, sir.
We teach life, sir.
We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.

Rafeef Ziadah “ Palestinian poet”

” You see, this is not political.”

Wissam jabarin

My second phase of The CaBuReRa Project began at the 24th August. I had the

opportunity to choose where I wanted to continue my journey and I my choice was In

Loco association.

like to tell you about In Loco.

If you don’t know this NGO you really should and I will make your life easy by

introducing it to you!

This Portuguese NGO was a finalist for the award of European NGO of the Year, award that is being given by European Civic Forum due to their work of promoting civic participation, citizenship and European values.

In the case of winning this award, In loco will be presenting their work at the World

Democracy Forum in Strasbourg, France.

I have to say that for me is very exciting to be integrated on this amazing Association

that I have always admired. Besides promoting all of the above, In Loco works in

different fields like: vocational training, cultural and natural heritage, responsible and

sustainable tourism, social and cultural identity of the rural communities, research,

participatory budgeting, sustainable development, entrepreneurship and innovation,…

This is a great opportunity for me to grow as a person and also as a professional,

having the chance to work in different areas, all of them related do what I’ve studied,

and really understanding what does it means to be a part of a great NGO.

Mónica Mendonça