Those of you who know me will recall that a few months after my husband died I took myself off on a holiday to Jordan with a good friend. It proved to be the most wonderful time. After all the pain and grief of previous months I felt a sense of being transported not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. I felt embraced by the sun, the space, the sounds and the people and experienced a huge sense of gratitude. I wanted to give something back. So five months later in March 2020 I returned but this time as a volunteer teaching English as a foreign language. The trip was organised by a company and I was to be based in Amman, the capital of Jordan, staying with a local family.

When I arrived I discovered there were two other volunteers on the same programme. Amanda had come over from the USA and Ale also from England. We had some great times together exploring the city and engaging with the local people through our volunteering projects.  Now, I have no experience of teaching English as  foreign language but this was not seen as a problem as I still provided an opportunity for the students to have conversation with a native English speaker. Ale, on the other hand, was an experienced EFL teacher with a great deal of experience.  I soon discovered that she had actually founded a charity whose aim was to be able to provide language lessons for refugees. She had begun the work in Barcelona but had also branched out into Senegal and Germany. 

As we completed the short time we had in Jordan Ale expressed her intention to continue the link with the charity we had been working with there and to include them as another of her projects.   The charity in Jordan is called Sakeena and they offer education to children who have been raised as orphans. As an orphan in Jordan you may be subject to severe physical and psychological abuse as well as neglect. Then at the age of eighteen all support is ended and you are expected to enter the adult world. As you have no family support this is doubly difficult as in Jordan the family is extremely important. Gaining skills in speaking English can be a great help.  https://sakeenaorphans.org/?lang=en

So for the last year through the pandemic Ale has been working to set up a link so that the young orphans and refugees in Amman can get some extra help from a team of volunteers via on-line English lessons.  This has now gone live and I am looking forward to having my first pair of students!

In the meantime I have been  teaching English to a young woman who is a refugee from El Salvador. She and her family fled to the UK to escape the violence of that country. It has been such an enjoyable and rewarding experience, even though I still have very little idea what I am doing! But she understands that I am a volunteer and is so grateful for everything we share together - including laughter! 

The charity Ale founded is called Conexion CP  https://conexioncp.org

She is looking for more volunteers. So this is an unashamed plug for her and the work she is doing. It is also an invitation for anyone reading who feels they might like to help to get in touch.

Last week she produced this video which I think is rather good. Do take a look!