Chapter Two
Community Cohesion
Currently, CITIES has me busy with the project’s community cohesion component. The team is working on a current project which is bisected into two parts. The first part, the identification of threats to community cohesion phase, has already been completed, prior to my arrival. The second phase of the project deals with instilling a system aimed at forming and sustaining the municipalities' self-reliance in dealing with factors affecting community cohesion. Hala has tasked me to work on a donor map, tracking all donor activity in the Kingdom, which has kept me rather busy in the office. The map is to be a apart of a toolkit for municipalities to use, amongst their other resources, to propel their self-sufficiency with regards to identifying threats to community cohesion on their own, and resolving them. However, I'll delve deeper into this at a later point.
A little bit about community cohesion: community cohesion is often defined as the ability of a community to function, grow, and prosper with peace and stability, as opposed to being in, or rather on the constant brink of, internal conflict. It’s the notion of togetherness, mutual bonding, and belonging exhibited by all members of a community. In a country like Jordan, where you have tribal diversity, subtle ethnic diversity, diversity in terms of age and sex, and the issue of migrants and refugees in an already tiny country, the issue of perserving the existing community cohesion becomes imperative. Ensuring that various groups in Jordan, including Jordanians of Bedouin, rural, and urban backgrounds, Palestinians, Circassians, Armenians, and Syrian refugees, etc., all who are additionally spread across socioeconomic and political lines, live together in harmony not just to survive, but to thrive and prosper, is no easy task. But is it far from impossible.
Much research and field work has gone into finding out the specific factors threatening community cohesion and the best way to intervene, and resolve those problems. What I found fascinating was not just the sheer amount of factors there were, which is to be expected of anywhere in the world, but just how varied they are. From more obvious ones such as the proliferation of drugs in the community and youth unemployment, to more subliminal ones such as stray dogs, illegally built speed bumps, and the misuse of social media, all of which, in their own ways, threaten community cohesion.
In the Field
This week I had the privilege of going on two trips out into the field for the first time. On Tuesday, the team and I headed to Zarqa, a city around 40 minutes northeast of Amman, and met with the new mayor. The meeting took place in his office, a swanky and polished room with dark wood furniture and, thankfully, plentiful AC. Hala and Riyad spoke to him and a delegation of other municipal officials from the area, about the work they do, introducing CITIES, and the ins-and-outs of the community cohesion component team’s work. Additionally, they informed him about the upcoming workshop, which I have affectionately dubbed “the meeting of the mayors” (I’ll go into more detail about this workshop later), which, in short, entails a meeting with municipal heads to discuss community cohesion in their communities and the new system of self-reliance. It was a fascinating first experience and complete privilege to get a firsthand view of how governance on the local level works in Jordan.
On Wednesday, I accompanied Mohammed Ijazi, a member on the C3 team, concerning citizen-government engagement, to Sahab, a municipality not far from Amman. Outside the municipal office, there was a throng of suitcases and 2 large buses, along with many people dressed for travel. After inquiring, I came to find out they were pilgrims headed south to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, using the municipal office building as a convenient meeting place before they began their pilgrimage. Wishing them safe travels, we then proceeded to meet with the mayor and his entourage of professionals to discuss an upcoming “social media training" for municipality heads, in an effort to help them further realize the various online tools and resources they possess to reach a broader base of citizenry in their areas of governance.
Daily Life
Ramadan is drawing to a close, and as much as I’ll miss the holy month and the spiritual serenity it brings, I am very excited to drink coffee once again in daylight hours. I’ve made it a habit to go out and get iftar with friends but on the days when my social and mental battery is running low, I’ve befriended the local shawarma guy, a nice man from Syria, who gives me extra fries for free with my sandwich to take home with me and enjoy in the comfort of my apartment.
The heat has spiked up this week, and I’ve taken to using the air conditioning, staying inside, and repeatedly spraying my face with rose water while reading the hot hours away, until the evening comes with a respite of coolness, and more importantly, iftar. Other than that, I’ve been settling in quite well, and have begun to quite love coming to work. The smiling faces of the pleasant folks in the office make it not just bearable, but actually delightful. The assignments and research I've been asked to do have been rather stimulating and it almost feels wrong—doing work which you enjoy so much that it doesn't feel like work—but I dare say I am enjoying it. We have the entirety of next week off due to Eid al-Fitr, and everybody has been busy making and discussing their upcoming plans for the holiday. Being free from familial duties or anything of the sort, I’ve been planning my own mini vacation, but that is a story for next week :)