Jerash camp was set up as an ‘emergency’ camp in 1968 for 11,500 Palestine refugees and displaced persons who were displaced from the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1967 Arab war. It is known locally as Gaza camp, and is home to over 35,000 refugees. It is the poorest among the ten Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, with 52.7 per cent of Palestine refugees having an income below the national poverty line.
Jerash camp also has the highest number of Palestine refugees who do not have health insurance, with 88 per cent of refugees uninsured. This specific population lives under even higher poverty rates than the rest due to several legal restrictions related to their non-citizen status that limit their rights, contribute to their vulnerable living conditions, and adds to the barriers that stand between them and their access to employment opportunities, health care, educational opportunities, and other social services.
Mental Health Crisis in Jerash Camp:
Mental health remains a significant challenge in Jerash Camp, with high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among residents.
In response to the acute mental health needs in this underserved community, UOSSM USA launched a project aimed at alleviating the mental health burden among Palestinian refugees and host communities in Jerash Camp. This initiative is integrated in a Primary health center within local NGO operating inside the camp, to ensure services are accessible to those most in need.
The project adopts an integrated approach that combines direct mental health services, psychosocial support activities, and capacity-building for local stakeholders offering a sustainable model for strengthening community resilience and improving well-being.
The Space of Hope project successfully expanded access to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services for vulnerable populations in the Gaza Camp, including children, adolescents, women, and men. By integrating individual counseling, family therapy, group psychosocial activities, and community awareness sessions, the project provided holistic support addressing anxiety, depression, trauma, and social-emotional development. Comprehensive case management and referral mechanisms ensured continuity of care, while training and capacity-building initiatives strengthened local MHPSS expertise. Overall, the project reached several thousand beneficiaries, enhanced community resilience, reduced stigma, and strengthened the ability of the camp’s residents and service providers to cope with prolonged psychosocial distress under conditions of chronic displacement and poverty.
In 2021, UOSSM USA’s Jordan office partnered with Bareeq Education Center to launch the academic enrichment program for refugee students and underserved Jordanian children, grades 1-12 in Amman, Jordan. The courses offered include Arabic, English, Math, Physics, Mental Math, and Chemistry.
In addition, fun activities and competitions are provided for the students including soccer, chess, art, and other entertaining events.
In 2022, UOSSM USA was awarded a grant by the US Department of State to support educational enrichment integrated with psychosocial support services to refugee and underserved children in Jordan. Working in collaboration with Bareeq Educational Enrichment Center (BEEC) in Amman, this after-school program will assist 400 children in becoming better prepared to integrate into local school systems. UOSSM USA will leverage this partnership to incorporate a refugee responsive teaching competencies model (RRTCM) that will enable refugee children to access enrichment programming after school, while also strengthening the capacity of teachers to provide academic enrichment through social emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support services (PSS)-specific activities.
The primary objectives of this after-school program are to:
1. Improve academic skills of the children via remedial and enrichment programming in an inclusive environment.
2. Strengthen the capacity of teachers to provide academic curricula that improves the child’s academic performance and overall wellbeing.
3. Enhance the children’s coping mechanisms by providing psychosocial support services and fostering social emotional learning skills to mitigate their trauma while providing mental health referrals as needed.
In 2022, the UOSSM USA Jordan office began providing surgical operations to refugee and underserved families in Jordan.
The UOSSM USA Surgeries project aims to provide a variety of surgeries, free of charge, to refugee, needy, and other underserved families in Jordan, who would otherwise not have access or the means for these vital surgical operations. This will help improve their health and overall wellbeing, and alleviate their suffering.
Since the project began UOSSM USA provided 8 tonsillectomies and 5 ophthalmic surgeries to Syrian refugees.
In 2021, Bareeq and UOSSM USA piloted integrating a Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) program in the educational center. The center offers group and individual MHPSS sessions to mothers and students, and also provides capacity building for teachers and staff to recognize mental health issues including trauma and illness.
If teachers detect mental health issues in students, they are first sent to the PSS center for PSS first aid, and to begin sessions. If the mental health illness is more severe, the patient is referred to our partner in Jordan for more specialized MHPSS care.
Since July 2021, at least 150 people have joined PSS sessions including individual, group, training and consultations.
The UOSSM USA - Jordan regional office has provided humanitarian relief with food and emergency aid in areas of crisis in southern Syria and Jordan to refugee and underserved families. Such initiatives include essential food distribution, and provision of medical supplies and medicines to hard-to-reach areas in Syria.
UOSSM USA provided area displacement/refugee camps with emergency relief including food baskets, Adahi/Qurbani meat, medicines, clean water and other humanitarian relief to help alleviate their suffering.
Since 2020, the UOSSM USA – Jordan office has distributed Adahi/Qurbani meat to refugees and underserved families in Jordan, and displaced families in southern Syria.
In addition, UOSSM USA partnered with Hathi Hayati to distribute food essentials and Adahi/Qurbani meat to refugee and underserved families in Jordan in 2021.
As Daraa came under siege and bombardment, UOSSM USA’s Jordan office responded by purchasing and distributing essential food to displaced and needy families, and purchased and distributed medicines to local medical facilities.
In 2018, UOSSM USA operated a mobile clinic in southern Syria in the Shayah Farms area.
The mobile clinic provided essential medical care to an area of 19,000 internally displaced persons, half of which were children. The mobile clinic focused on the care of women and children while providing other vital healthcare services to others. The mobile clinic also focused on providing nutrition services to detect, prevent and treat malnutrition. Over 8000 people received services at the mobile clinic until services were suspended due to the situation on the ground.
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