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Green Power
Jordan is home to quite a number of non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations and grassroots action bodies, but one has surfaced as a true model worth emulating. Wendy Merdian looks into the real changes that one organization – Entity Green Training – has managed to bring about in its short time and gauges the reaction of its staff, supporters and beneficiaries.
Like many before him, after decades away, Wajih Ireifij came home to Jordan. Surprised by the great gap between rich and poor, he thought hard about what could be done to alleviate the growing problem. Then, through his son’s Boy Scout Eagle project, he found a unique way that not only allowed him to live here, but also create a company that impacts poverty-stricken pockets of his homeland.
Acting as the Jordanian contractor for an international non-governmental organization (NGO), Ireifij saw the lack of affordable housing, rural poverty, limited access to viable employment opportunities and the lack of waste management as areas for him to focus on. In a perfect storm of opportunity, he led a group of diverse professionals with backgrounds in international development, environmental stewardship and construction to found Entity Green Training (EGT) in March 2008. Through EGT, the team sought a novel, integrated and sustainable approach to development as a for-profit business. Just one year later, the organization has implemented a series of projects that have laid the groundwork for the fulfillment of this vision.
Skills For Economic Survival
Since it started operations in March 2008, the EGT has trained over 900 men and women from the Baka Valley, Amman, and other areas, arming them with new vocational skills and engaging them with new income-generating programs. It has also built nearly 20 homes for low-income families in the Greater Amman area and helped establish a pilot recycling program servicing embassies, five-star hotels and schools.
According to the USAID Web site, the problems facing Jordanian youth are huge. “A wide range of social and economic challenges continues to affect the Middle East and North Africa. Nearly half of the region’s population is under age 24,” it states. “Inadequate educational and employment opportunities for this large youth population contribute to internal instability. Poor prospects for long-term health and prosperity reinforce intolerance and extremism and provide fertile ground for unrest,” the Web site adds. The EGT staff is addressing every aspect of this challenge by providing training, employment opportunities and housing.
EGT’s focus on integration is apparent throughout its portfolio. The use of male trainees in construction training courses kept housing construction costs low and allowed the workers to gain experience. Moreover, the income from the skills training counterpart was then used for the expansion of the recycling and the housing programs.
Working with NGOs, but not becoming one, has been key to EGT’s success. “We spent our last piaster on the lease and costs for building the Ein Al Pasha center. We held our first training course within ten weeks of opening,” Ireifij told Jordan Business. “We work at warp speed and have accomplished more in one year than most NGOs do in ten, and at a fraction of the cost.”
Roofs Over Heads
Affordable housing for low-income families is a critical need in Jordan. In the past, EGT staff found that just giving a family a house only solved one aspect of a systemic problem. If a beneficiary is allowed to be passive, they just don’t take care of their allotment, nor do they have the skills to properly maintain a home. EGT does more than pick up the bill; the staff visits homeowners regularly and follows up with advice for short- and long-term maintenance.
“The monthly payments from the housing projects pay for new houses to be built, while the income generated from the training program produces capital for expansion, creating jobs for those we have trained,” said Khalil Aboud, EGT’s housing project manager. “In turn, stable jobs provide sufficient income to build a home. Economically stable families are emotionally stable families; that familial stability contributes to community stability. It’s a win-win-win scenario,” he explained.
Um Annas can testify to that. After working as a teacher to help her and her husband’s 24 siblings through school, she and their five young children were forced to return to Jordan while he remained in Saudi Arabia. The only place she could afford on a teacher’s salary was a two-room flat with no bathroom, kitchen, plumbing, electricity or windows. She discovered EGT when her youngest son wanted to take their training course for catering, and was encouraged to ask Aboud for his help. After hearing her specifications, he drew out a cost analysis, needs assessment and payment plan that worked for her family. “The men at EGT are like my own sons. They took me to pick out the colors of the tile I wanted in my kitchen. I want everyone to know what they have done for me,” she said with tears of gratitude.
These are people who are not able to get a loan from a bank due to low or inconsistent income, so EGT provides a low-cost loan program, with most ranging from JD2,000 and JD13,000. So far, on a five-year re-payment schedule, they have a 100% payback rate and great relationships with their partners.
Learning from the mistakes of other programs, the EGT’s focus has been on vocational training as opposed to focusing exclusively on technical training. This, the organization believes, prepares workers for a whole lifestyle change, one where work ethics enhance skills. The courses include automotive maintenance, computer hardware and software, construction, electrical installation, mobile maintenance and repair, organic gardening, plumbing installation and repair as well as waste-management systems. It combines theoretical classroom activities and hands-on training courses featuring real plumbing and electrical bays with cubicles, working cars and computers. Moreover, the catering classes provide a daily meal to trainees, while Nicholas Hall, head of the organic gardening project, can often be found speaking about the therapeutic value of growing one’s own food and using organic waste for composting.
Combining work skills with regionally workable livelihood training has been key. The International Relief and Development (IRD), one of EGT’s NGO partners, has been a first-hand witness to this approach. “We are extremely happy with the results we are seeing with the trainees coming through EGT’s programs,” said Dawn Greensides, IRD’s deputy country director. “They are being given skills and experience that are necessary for the local workforce, and will integrate well into the Jordanian community,” she explained. “What impresses me most about EGT staff is that they are not sitting in offices managing the work, they are out there side-by-side with the participants. They are very connected to the trainees; they know their families and what concerns them. They have real relationships there,” she added.
Taking On Recycling
Being a for-profit or low-profit company has helped provide some capital for new projects rather than distracting EGT staff by having them pursue grants and other sources of funding. Additionally, less bureaucracy freed them from the constraints of slow progress that typically hinder NGOs, but their success has many NGOs wanting to partner with them. “Helping the poor is a viable business option. Much of what NGOs do benefits the middle and upper classes without impacting the poor,” Ireifij told Jordan
Business. “Success is often gauged by the number of employees in the head office. I believe that NGOs are a necessary component of the development equation, but not all are sustainable,” he explained, questioning the sustainability of NGO programs whose funding may be threatened due to the status of the current world economy.
EGT’s sustainability is linked to two of Jordan’s most under-utilized resources: the situational poor and recyclable waste. The team at EGT created a framework for a waste management training program that could put previously unemployed men straight to work. The trainees are taught the R3 Method: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. They learn how to sort, classify and store reclaimed material.
The sorting station at the EGT’s Ein Al Pasha facility is run by Mohammed Shahab and 17-year-old Mohammed Shanableh, a third generation Palestinian refugee. Young Shanableh’s father was ill and unable to support his family, forcing him to drop out of school and work. Since each trainee in EGT’s program is given a stipend by IRD while they learn, Shanableh was able to go back to school. To encourage the value of education, young men like Shanableh are allowed to work after school, but only after they complete their homework assignments.
EGT’s staff not only trained Shanableh, but they also offered him side-by-side life mentoring. The investment of the trainers went beyond the courses, as they helped the young trainees work through issues that originated at home. Shanableh is now viewed as a leader in his community.
Networking and mobilizing working groups are one of EGT’s most distinctive capabilities. Majid Othman, head of the recycling program, recognized that Amman’s loose network of trash scavengers had developed a flexible and efficient, albeit messy, methodology in their approach to waste management. In stopping to talk to them, Majid realized that their existing structure could be integrated into a larger mechanism at a citywide level. EGT had the vision, while the waste collectors on the street had the navigation of street-level reality. “In partnership with an international NGO, approximately 50 of these men were trained to provide a more professional environmental service, how to run a route, how to be intentional with trash and given carts. They used to be looked down upon as dirty, but they now have an upgraded sense of dignity, making JD20 a day. That’s not a bad wage at all,” Othman told Jordan Business. “On the other hand, we were already analyzing the local market for recycling, and we’ve received enthusiastic reactions. The manager of the Sheraton Hotel contacted us, followed by other five-star hotels, several schools and NGOs. The pilot project took on a life of its own,” he said.
Kathryn Casson, wife of the deputy head of mission at the British Embassy, wanted to find ways to recycle waste when she arrived in Jordan, but found that there was no infrastructure for even simple recycling. The UK is committed to promoting environmental responsibility in all their embassies worldwide, so the British embassy established a Green Team and now has an environment manager to promote green initiatives at the embassy, including recycling.
“Discovering EGT was the key in enabling us to get started with recycling. We built bins for recycling at the British Club and now EGT comes regularly to pick-up our recyclables and to take them to Ein Al Pasha where they are processed. Many embassy families and local staff are now participating, and we are glad to be doing something tangible for Jordan’s environment,” Casson told Jordan Business. “We were also concerned that the recycling didn’t undermine the livelihoods of those who take aluminum cans and other materials from neighborhood trash bins,” she said, explaining that EGT’s vocational training for young and needy people helped address the underlying needs of the poorest of the poor.
The wife of the US ambassador to Jordan, Anne Beecroft, concurs. “When we first arrived in August 2008, our residence staff humored me by storing all the aluminum cans, tin cans, plastic bottles and glass containers I insisted on saving. Yet, I knew we would find a way to recycle these materials rather than throw them in the trash,” she explained, recalling how upon hearing about EGT, the US embassy Green Team immediately began a recycling pilot program with the organization, collecting the embassy’s recyclable materials. “EGT also conducted a training session for embassy staff and cleaning contractors and arranged for an embassy community field trip to the Ein Al Pasha facility so we could see what happens to the materials that EGT collects. EGT has exceeded our expectations in translating a concept into a workable market model,” she added.
The effects of the recycling programs go beyond the positive environmental impact created. Garbage has an economic value, both locally and on the international market. Europe recovers 60% of its trash, as do some states in the US, such as Colorado. While Jordan recovers less than 1% of its trash, examples, such as the Sheraton Hotel in Amman – which has already had an 18% recovery rate of inorganic waste that is set to increase with more training – are abound. Part of EGT’s service to the hotel industry is providing reports of the compiled data of their waste recovery that helps them evaluate their inter-corporate “green” capability.
Suffice to say, Jordan has a surprising market for recyclables. For instance, certain types of plastic are currently being bought by a company in Sahab that turns them into office chairs and plumbing fixtures. Reclaimed steel and aluminum are also purchased by manufacturers in Sahab. “We are collecting printer ink cartridges for a local business to re-fill and sell. There is already a small-scale paper recycling industry here we sell to, and the remainder is sold on the international market,” said Ireifij. “There is a market in Lebanon for clear glass, and other bottles are cleaned and sold to local businesses to fill with olive oil to sell. With PET plastics (water and soda bottles), we haven’t yet reached the critical mass of volume needed to sell on the international market,” he explained.
Meanwhile, there is currently a waiting list of embassies, hotels, schools and NGOs waiting for their own formal recycling programs to begin. In the meantime, news of EGT’s success has reached other local entities, including the Ministry of Environment. The EGT is currently in talks with the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) to implement another pilot program in the city center, using GAM land as a sorting base for waste and GAM collection trucks for pick up and transport.
A Surviving Vision
At the end of the day, EGT hopes that the projects it is currently running are only pilots for something bigger. Their ultimate goal is a 200-unit, low cost, community-based housing project for trainees. “All of the individual capacities that EGT is honing now would be combined into one self-supporting system,” Ireifij said. “Training ensures the professional quality of the construction, the recycling and gardening will allow the homeowners to keep costs down while maintaining and beautifying their own community. By building their own homes, starting their own neighborhood businesses, planting local gardens, implementing recycling and gray water reclamation from the outset allows people to create communities they can be proud of, on their terms,” he added.
EGT’s next vocational plan is to build similar training centers in other parts of the country. They are looking for like-minded people at every level, and companies to sponsor custom tailored training programs for their employees. “We want business partners who will share our goal of using profits for maximum impact on the community. We want to use profits for people, not people for profit, and see other Jordanian businesses become stakeholders in locally sustainable development,” said Ireifij . “Too often, future planning has worked around the goals and control of a foreign NGO, not what locals see as the critical need. We have been a connection between foreign NGOs and local need, thereby maximizing their investment,” he explained, highlighting EGT’s goal to integrate Jordanian social entrepreneurs into the equation, specifically those in the banking sector where the organization hopes it can provide a different kind of housing loan for the poor. “EGT has created a model that works in our context, and it is time to expand,” declared Ireifij.
* For more information about EGT, visit www.entitygreen.com