Jordan

In 1979, Queen Noor chaired the National Committee for the International Year of the Child and actively launched a national immunization campaign, children’s parks, and literature programs, as well as an initiative to establish Jordan’s first children’s hospital. Also, in 1979, the Queen established the Royal Endowment for Culture and Education (RECE), which conducted the first research on the country’s specific manpower needs and awards scholarships, with special emphasis on outstanding women, for graduate studies in fields vital to Jordan’s future development.
In 1980, the Queen convened the first Arab Children’s Congress, which annually brings together children from throughout the Arab world for two weeks of activities designed to promote understanding, tolerance, and solidarity. During two weeks of travel, learning, and cultural interaction in Jordan, the children are encouraged to discuss and debate contemporary issues and challenges facing the Arab nations and to appreciate the cultural and historical bonds shared by all Arabs.

In 1981, Queen Noor, with a group of Jordanian philanthropists, faculty, and students from Yarmouk University in northern Jordan, founded the Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts. The annual festival provides a vibrant venue—as one of Jordan’s most important archaeological sites—for Arab and international performing artists, and serves as a dynamic catalyst for the promotion of Jordanian and Arab culture and arts.

In 1984, Queen Noor assumed responsibility for the implementation of an educational project to commemorate His Majesty King Hussein’s Silver Jubilee. The Jubilee School, an independent co-educational secondary school, was established in 1993 to develop the academic and leadership potential of outstanding scholarship students from the country and the region, with special emphasis on students from less developed areas of Jordan. The School provides a unique educational environment, which promotes creative thinking, leadership and conflict-resolution skills, scientific and technological expertise, and social responsibility. The School’s Center for Excellence in Education advances national and regional educational standards through the development of innovative curricula and training programs, and workshops for public and private school teachers. The National Music Conservatory was initiated by Queen Noor in 1985 to develop accomplished musicians in classical Arabic and Western music, to foster music appreciation, and to promote teacher training and public school music curricula in Jordan. Its annual program includes concerts, recitals, and instruction by local and world-renowned international musicians.

The National Handicrafts Development Project was launched by the Queen in 1985 to revive and preserve a unique aspect of Jordan’s national heritage. In partnership with Save the Children (U.S.), the Bani Hamida and Jordan River Design projects were established as successful community-development handicraft-production models. Subsequently, the Jordan Design and Trade Center was established to raise the standards of national handicrafts production, to increase women’s productivity and economic role, to create new jobs, marketing strategies, and opportunities for the industry to become a new, sustainable source of national income.

Also, in 1985, the Noor Al Hussein Foundation (NHF) was established to consolidate and integrate the Queen’s diverse and expanding development initiatives. The Foundation initiates and supports national, regional, and international projects in the fields of integrated community development, micro finance, women and enterprise development, child and family health, and education and culture. NHF programs successfully advanced and modernized development thinking in Jordan by progressing beyond traditional charity-oriented social welfare practices, to integrate social development strategies more closely with national economic priorities. NHF projects promote individual and community self-reliance, grassroots participation in decision-making and project implementation, equal opportunity, with special emphasis on the empowerment of women, and intersectoral co-operation.

The NHF Quality of Life Project and Women-in-Development Projects, the Institute for Child Health and Development, the Jubilee School, the National Handicrafts Development Project, the National Music Conservatory, the Performing Arts Center, and the Jordan Micro Credit Company have been recognized and supported by the United Nations and other international organizations as development models for the Middle East and the developing world.

In 1986, Queen Noor launched Jordan’s and the Arab World’s first children’s museum, the Children’s Heritage and Science Museum, and in 1988, the Mobile Life and Science Museum, as an outreach program for the children’s museum targeting young people in rural areas. Using computers, books, exhibits, and hands-on educational and recreational activities, young children learn about environmental protection, health, the sciences, and Jordan’s history.
In 1995, His Majesty King Hussein directed Queen Noor to establish and chair a National Task Force for Children (NTFC) to monitor and evaluate the condition and status of Jordan’s children in accordance with Arab and international conventions on the rights of the child and the National Plan of Action for Children. To encourage and facilitate cooperation among often competing organizations, the NTFC established the National Coalition for Children in 1997 as a forum to coordinate and promote partnerships among all public and private institutions, and NGOs involved with children’s affairs. The NTFC also established a national policy and research center as well as Jordan’s first child information system on the World Wide Web. The Information and Research Center (IRC) has focused on critically important issues, such as child labor, urban poverty, youth and culture, smoking among teens, and gaps and priorities in development research and programs.

Queen Noor chaired the Al Amal Cancer Center (1997-2001)—Jordan’s first comprehensive cancer center serving Jordan and the region.

The Queen currently chairs the King Hussein Foundation (KHF) and the King Hussein Foundation International (KHFI). KHF was established by Royal Decree in Jordan in 1999 to serve as an enduring commitment to King Hussein’s humanitarian vision and legacy. The same year, the KHFI, a nonprofit 501c (3), nongovernmental organization was founded to ensure that the international community also would benefit from this vision and legacy. The foundations’ work promotes cross-cultural dialogue and understanding and, building on efforts in Jordan, advances social, economic, and political opportunity in the Arab and Muslim world. Among its activities, KHFI sponsors the annual King Hussein Leadership Prize (KHLP) to promote the values of social justice, human rights, prosperity and peace. The prize recognizes individuals, groups, or institutions that demonstrate inspiring and courageous leadership in their efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, tolerance, equity, and peace. Past recipients include Professor Muhammad Yunus (2000), The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) (2001), The Jordan Hashemite Charity (2002), Mary Robinson (2003), Médecins Sans Frontières (2004) The Arab Human Development Report (2005), Dr. Rola Dashti (Kuwait) (2005) Saliha Djuderija (Bosnia Herzegovina) (2005), OneVoice (Israel-Palestine) (2005) Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (2006), and Seeds of Peace (2006). The KHLP is awarded at an annual dinner that serves as a platform for next generation peace-builders attended by world leaders such as President Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan. In 2007, the foundation launched the King Hussein Media and Humanity program to bring balance and objectivity to stereotypes and prejudices found often in the media that stand as obstacles to peace efforts.

Queen Noor is an active patron or president of several national institutions, which serve the Jordanian community. These include: the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, the Petra National Trust, the Royal Society of Fine Arts, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, the SOS Children’s Village Association, the Queen Noor Technical College for Civil Aviation, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, the Jordanian Physiotherapy Society, the Jordan Tennis Federation, and the Women’s Sports Club.

International Activities

Conservation

The Queen is Patron of The World Conservation Union (IUCN), the oldest international conservation organization in the world, Founding President & Honorary President Emeritus of BirdLife International, the widest global network of conservation organizations, a board member of World Wildlife Fund International (WWF), the largest, privately supported international conservation organization dedicated to protecting the world’s wildlife and wildlands, and a board member of Conservation International (CI), a leader in the preservation of global biodiversity including critical marine and tropical ecosystems. In 1995, she received the United Nations Environment Program Global 500 Award for her activism in environmental protection, in promoting awareness, and in initiating community action for the preservation of Jordan’s natural heritage.

Education and Children

She is President of the United World Colleges (UWC), a network of 12 equal-opportunity international colleges around the world which foster cross-cultural understanding and global peace; Chair of the international advisory committee for the United Nations University International Leadership Academy (UNU/ILA), the first global leadership training facility as well as the first UN university institution to be initiated and established in the Middle East. The Queen also serves as a member of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey International Advisory Board.

She is Honorary Chair of the McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building, which brings together Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis to improve the living conditions of the region’s poor.

The Queen founded three SOS Children’s Villages in Jordan and is a Honorary member of the General Assembly of the SOS-Kinderdorf International—a network of villages for orphans and abandoned children around the world. The Queen is a Trustee of the Mentor Foundation, a global youth drug abuse prevention initiative, President of Journey of a Lifetime Trust in the U.K., a youth volunteer organization that takes disabled, disadvantaged, abused and neglected young people on challenging month-long expeditions. She is the Chair of the advisory board of the Center for the Study of the Global South at American University, which examines critical issues affecting the poorer developing countries of the world; and a board member of the Aspen Institute.

Peace Process

The Queen is an Adviser to the global initiative, Women Waging Peace, an advocacy group for the full participation of all stakeholders, especially women, in peace processes. She is also an advisor to Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings children from the Middle East and other conflict-wracked regions together to provide them an opportunity to break down the barriers of prejudice and build mutual respect, as well as producing a significant network of future leaders and activists for peace who value communication over confrontation; a board member of Refugees International (RI) that serves refugees, displaced persons, and other dispossessed people around the world; and a member of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)—created to promote conflict resolution through the search for, recovery, and identification of missing persons from the armed conflicts in the regions of the former Yugoslavia between 1991-1999. (Its Forensic Sciences Programme incorporates the use of scientifically accurate DNA methods in an effort to obtain near indisputable evidence of a missing person’s identity.)

In 1994, Queen Noor, a member of the International Commission on Peace and Food (ICPF), presented the results of a five-year international research program: "Uncommon Opportunities: An Agenda For Peace And Equitable Development" to the United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali for adoption by the UN. The report presented practical strategies to accelerate political stability, progress, and peace to ensure food security and employment, and to promote human development, demilitarization, and environmental protection. She is a Director on the global board of The Hunger Project, an international organization committed to the end of world hunger through the empowerment of women and communities, the stabilization of population growth, the eradication of poverty, the preservation of the natural environment and the universalization of access to basic health and education. As well as a member of the International Council of the Near East Foundation—a private, nonprofit, development agency that helps people in the Middle East and Africa build better lives for themselves and their communities.

Landmines

Queen Noor has assumed an advocacy role in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). As Patron of Landmine Survivors Network (LSN), she hosted the first “International Conference on Landmine Injury & Rehabilitation in the Middle East” in Amman in 1998 and successfully lobbied for Jordan’s ratification of the Ottawa treaty. She announced the critical 40th ratification of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty at the United Nations on October 1, 1998, detailing new measures to universalize the treaty and to promote victim-survivors assistance.

She has traveled to Central and Southeast Asia, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, to advocate with governments, to support NGOs, and to visit with landmine survivors struggling to heal, recover, and reclaim their lives. Queen Noor has testified before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus appealing for humanitarian assistance and justice for hundreds of thousands of landmine victims worldwide.

At the invitation of President Pastana, she undertook several humanitarian missions to Colombia to negotiate a series of humanitarian accords with the leaders of the country’s guerilla insurgency on landmines, child soldiers and kidnappings. Later, President Alvaro Uribe Velez invited her to oversee the destruction of Colombia’s last arsenal of anti-personnel mines in a ceremony meeting the Colombian Governments commitment assumed in the Ottawa Convention. During the ceremony, President Uribe asked for Queen Noor to continue her advocacy against the use of APMs especially in civilian areas and to call for support for the rapidly increasing number of Colombian casualties. In 2004 and 2005, Queen Noor was an expert advisor to the United Nations undertook humanitarian missions to Tajikistan in Central Asia to promote mine action, AIDS and drug trafficking prevention, women’s rights, and the Millennium Development Goals.