Jordan: MEPI to carry out practical training for participants

The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) announced on Wednesday plans to carry out practical training for participants and to expand its activities and objectives to achieve more success stories.

MEPI is the principal US Department of State initiative to support democratic reforms and achieve prosperous societies in the Middle East and North Africa.

David Hale, US ambassador to Jordan, highlighted the significance of the programme in supporting economic, political, and educational reform efforts in the region.

In a speech concluding the event, he called on participants to continue the hard work as leaders towards creating a prosperous future for the region.

“A few years ago, it was hard to organise such a conference because it was hard to find young activists and leaders; but nowadays things have changed,” he said.

Greg Howell, from the US Department of State’s MEPI, said the programme will organise intensive activities on women empowerment in civil society and the economy.

MEPI seeks to support women reformers across the region in their efforts to achieve full participation in society, Howell added, noting that the programme aims to address cultural, legal, economic and political barriers that women encounter.

Mona Mourad, 27, a project manager for a software engineering company in Lebanon, who joined The Legal and Business Fellowship Programme (LBFP) in 2007, told The Jordan Times that through exercises she learned the skills of how to lead a company.

“Although I gained experience, the programme could have been better. Due to the large number of participants, I could not meet more executives,” she said.

Mourad indicated that the conference gave her the opportunity to develop business and personal relationships as well as the chance to exchange ideas with her fellow participants.

According to Nisreen Musleh,32, from Palestine, the MEPI expanded her networking and improved her management skills through the training sessions.

Musleh, who runs her own training and consultancy company and who joined the LBFP in 2007, said that during the event, she met people from her country and they have future cooperative plans.

Another participant in the programme who has become an advocate for women’s rights in her country, is Manal Hussaini from Kuwait.

The 43-year old consultant engineer at the Kuwait Municipality and the owner of a medical supplies company, started with MEPI in 2005 during a conference for Arab women in Tunisia.

Besides the experience the programme offers on women’s rights, MEPI also developed the participants skills in business and showed the way to apply American best practices in home countries, Hussaini said.

Having participated in several workshops with Beyster Institute, she has launched an awareness campaign on women’s rights targeting university students.

“This project has opened the door for me to be involved in political activities and I worked as a campaign manager for a parliament candidate who was a women’s affairs activist,” she indicated.

Hussaini did not rule out contesting the parliamentarian elections in Kuwait in the future stressing the need to work on changing the perception of people to accept women in parliament.