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ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT
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National Handicrafts
Development Project |
Queen Noor visits the NHF's rug-weaving center at Al-Husseiniyyah village in the south of Jordan, where settled Bedouin women from 5 nearby villages are taught weaving and weaving-related skills. |
The Jordan Design & Trade Center
The JDTC was established in 1990 to raise the standards of Jordanian handicrafts production, to develop marketing opportunities, and to create new jobs and increase women’s involvement in production and decision-making. The JDTC is stimulating the handicrafts industry into becoming a new source of national income.
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A selection of products of the Jordan Design and Trade Center. |
The center, which has become a national design and trade institution, works closely with public and private handicrafts centers located throughout the Kingdom, in technical and management training, product development and local and international marketing.
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Hand-woven baskets produced at JDTC's Mukheibeh basket weaving center, which trains rural women to produce hand-women baskets from palm and banana leaves and to manufacture wooden roped stool, chairs and tables. The project was implemented in cooperation with the Global Environmental Facility to establish a model replicable environmental program for effective preservation and efficient use of the local environment. |
The center is also involved in developing trademark, design and copyright laws for the protection of the country’s handicrafts artisans. Many of the new designs for the crafts industry in Jordan are created at the JDTC, as are comprehensive training programs for workers and managers.
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HM Queen Noor discussing handicraft designs at the JDTC. |
The center also sets quality control standards, provides advice on modern business practices, and manages domestic and international marketing for NHF projects. The JDTC includes a retail showroom, a design and product development unit and a technical and management training section.
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The JDTC’s retail showroom in Amman |
In April 1996, Queen Noor inaugurated JDTC’s Al-Amarat jewelry training center at Wadi Musa, near the ancient Nabataean city of Petra. The center trains women to produce traditional silver jewelry for the tourist market thereby increasing women’s income and the local community’s benefits from tourism. JDTC plans to construct a permanent center with an expanded retail outlet near the Petra Visitor’s Center. For more information, please e-mail the JDTC at jdtc@nets.com.jo .
Medicinal Herbs Project
The Medicinal Herbs Project enables women to turn their home gardens and unexploited lands into market garden for aromatic and medicinal herbs such as thyme, sage and chamomile. The herbs are then sold as beverages or as raw materials for medicines.
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The Medicinal Herbs Project was launched in 1989 when Queen Noor joined the women of 5 villages in the north of Jordan to plant the first seedlings.
In just over one year, the project produced an equivalent of 10% of Jordan’s imports of thyme and sage, and continues to expand rapidly to benefit cooperatives and farmers throughout Jordan. |
Launched in villages in the north of Jordan with technical support from the Jordan University of Science and Technology, the scheme trains women to plant and supervise herbal gardens and to process, package and market their herbs in tea bag form or as condiments.
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The Processing and Packaging Center where the herbs are cleaned, dried and prepared for marketing as tea and medicine. |
Jordan Micro Credit Company (JMCC)
The Jordan Micro Credit Company (JMCC), was launched by Her Majesty Queen Noor on October 25, 1999. JMCC is a non-profit company established by the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to offer loans to small entrepreneurs.
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The company has already started lending services in central and east Amman and plans to gradually expand its program over the next three years to other areas throughout the country.
JMCC is one of four institutions subsidized by USAID to establish a sustainable microfinance industry in Jordan. Together these four institutions will operate more than 24 microfinance offices throughout the Kingdom. The institutions provide mostly non-collateralized loans to entrepreneurs with strong cash flow on a commercial basis at market rates of interest. The program, growing at 60 per cent annually, is slated by the end of 2001 to have more that 25,000active borrowers, half of whom are women.
The Noor Al Hussein Foundation has been active in the field of micro and small enterprise development since its inception in 1985, creating numerous projects which have been recognized by United Nations agencies as models and training centers for the region.
| NOOR Al HUSSEIN FOUNDATION |
| INTEGRATED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT |
| WOMEN & GENDER |
| CHILDREN'S WELFARE & FAMILY HEALTH |
| ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT |
| EDUCATION & CULTURE |