Alumni Update: Jordan

Life after Global UGRAD: Jordan

With no doubt the Global UGRAD exchange program enhanced my leadership skills and helped me find better opportunities. Earning this scholarship actually made me a more attractive candidate in Jordan. People who understand the competitive nature of the scholarship will recognize it as an accomplishment. Competitive scholarships like this one are accomplishments worth listing on my resume and can help me stand out when I search for a job, making it possible to achieve the career I am looking for. The workshops themes in Washington, DC had special relevance to my professional goals and career objectives.

My dream has always been to work with non-profit organizations and empower youth in my society. I am achieving that goal now by working with an NGO called “Support Youth Leaders” as a project manager and team leader. Our aim is to support youth in society by sending them on exchange programs abroad to attend workshops, training, and volunteering opportunities that are fully funded to boost their CV and make them a more attractive job candidate for a better future.  In October, I will be a team leader in a workshop with five other Jordanians to attend a workshop in Germany about empowerment. That is our normal human life cycle, today you are helped and tomorrow you help others.

After my Global UGRAD Program, I also was accepted to attend the largest conference in the world for students and take a course in international relations in Rome with the United Nations. I also took an entrepreneurship and business course with Berkeley University. I am also one of the facilitators for one of the streams of “Education 4 All”  in The Global Summit that will be take place this year in Amman.  I was also published on “Humans of Amman”, and “I am Human” for inspirational stories.

I am also a volunteer with the HeForShe Movement in Jordan. I am one of the main volunteers in the core team representing the HeForShe Movement in Jordan and coordinating with Jordanian universities for HeForShe activities. HeForShe is a movement created by the UN Women for gender equality and empowerment of women. I was honored to be one of the 100 accepted participants from 1900 applicants to attend the first gender camp in Jordan and represent HeForShe in that event. The Youth Gender Camp was an amazing experience. It was the first of its kind in Jordan for empowering women in our society through different workshops in the camp. The workshop aimed at strengthening women’s representation, participation, rights and leadership position across the Kingdom.

One of my most recent works I am working on now is to empower and support youth in Jordan to find better opportunities. I created a Facebook group called “Jordanian Youth Opportunities”. The group aims to create a platform that connects Jordanians to find opportunities such as scholarships, training, internships, and conferences in Jordan and around the world, since a lot of Jordanians lack guidance in finding such opportunities. Another idea I am working on in the group is “Jordanian Scholar Stories” to let alumni from different programs talk about their experiences with brief introductions of the program to motivate and support others to apply.

 

Written by Ali Sider, 2016-17 Global UGRAD student from Jordan at New Mexico Highlands University