This report examines social development in Jordan with respect to childhood education and literacy. The survey presented examines the status of children’s literature and encouraging reading in Jordan. The report assesses the promotion of children’s literature in Jordan through various axes;; including the quality and prevalence of libraries;; the effectiveness of policies;; and the existence of civil institutions active in the field of children’s literature. The report also identifies various trends with respect to children’s literature through concentrated discussion groups with families;; teachers;; children;; and writers of children’s literature.

The aim of the report is to identify the critical issues of the Iraqi refugees in 2008;; especially the vulnerable groups of children and women and their humanitarian needs. The report examines the lack of legal framework in Jordan to identify the status of Iraqi refugees and obtain quantitative information about them. Additionally;; it looks at other urgent issues including unemployment;; lack of access to education and health care and high level of post-traumatic stress syndrome among the refugees. The report summarizes key actions and achievements of the UNICEF in 2007. It also includes the organization’s plans for the humanitarian action in areas of health and nutrition;; education;; and child protection in the following year in response to the urgent issues.

With an executive summary on the Syrian refugees situation in Jordan;; the report combines the conclusions of detailed assessments in various areas including as child protection and gender-based violence;; education;; water sanitation and hygiene;; and nutrition and health. It provides a holistic picture of the situation faced by Syrian children and women in Jordan to draw out recommendations for necessary plans of action. Some key findings of the report include growing challenges for water;; sanitation and hygiene situation in Za’atari camp;; several threats to the nutritional status and health of Syrian girls;; boys and women and increasing violence against adolescents. Bringing together the voices of children and women at the camps;; the report examines the situations of Syrian refugees in host communities and refugee camps and finds key recommendations based on them.

The study aims to evaluate the concepts of water;; energy and solid waste that exists in the curriculum and the manner in which they are tackled by mapping the current textbooks based the three themes of the study – water;; energy and solid waste. The report is based on a comprehensive study of 104 school textbooks from grades 1 – 10 in fourteen subjects. The survey finds that the environmental education concepts were vastly covered in all subjects of he study in a total of 1777 concepts;; and most of them focused on scientific facts and information with repetitive energy concepts and lack of sequential flow. This research was conducted as part of the Public Action for Water;; Energy and Environment Project (PAP);; which aims to encourage water and energy conservation and to support behavior change towards more conservation and efficient practices both at the household level and in the commercial;; industrial and civil society arenas using social marketing behavioral methods. Based on the finding that there is little space allocated to the synthesis and application of information and knowledge and therefore the concepts remain superficially tackled;; the report recommends that support material should be prepared for the different grade levels and training programs should be developed for the teachers as real agent of change and role models.

The report explores the level of knowledge;; attitudes held and practices observed by young people towards environmental issues related to water and energy conservation and sold waste management. It maps out available resources;; programs and learning opportunities in the informal and non-formal education sectors;; through which positive environmental attitudes can be encouraged and promoted. The survey of the report assess the knowledge;; attitudes and practices of young people aged 7 -24;; educations;; staff and youth workers to identify strengths and areas for improvement through capacity building and explore existing resources;; programs to evaluate their effectiveness. This research was conducted as part of the Public Action for Water;; Energy and Environment Project (PAP);; which aims to encourage water and energy conservation and to support behavior change towards more conservation and efficient practices both at the household level and in the commercial;; industrial and civil society arenas using social marketing behavioral methods. The study concludes that there is a need for more “green” programs that involve youth in a proactive way and therefore;; it recommends that programs targeting youth need to remain positive;; dynamic and in context. The recommendations of the report include development of environmental resources in the Arabic language;; the youth-led;; peer-led programs that involve participatory learning opportunities;; and social media tools to raise interests;; awareness and creation of environmental education task force.