Sawiyan’s history of impact and transformative community-curated pedagogy.
In Jordan, Locally Led supports community-led initiatives and accompanies the organizers of Sawiyan, a community-driven movement solely led by members of the Sudanese, Somali refugee communities.
A history of impact: ‘By the community, for the community, together’.
Over the past decade, Sawiyan has worked alongside marginalized Sudanese, Somali, and Yemeni refugees and Afro-Jordanians to advocate on their behalf, incubate community-led programming tackling their most pressing issues, and create greater access to assistance, protection, and personal development for their communities. Throughout it’s history, the movement has built a strong reputation a pioneering leader advocating for the rights/access to assistance of African-origin refugees in Jordan and it’s innovative, purely refugee-owned, led, and conceptualized programming.
Sawiyan’s highly impactful advocacy campaigning, which mainstreamed the critical vulnerabilities that African-origin refugees face in the region where they are typically excluded from refugee response framework, paired with its ability to strategically coalition build, led to real change in policy/approach at the local, humanitarian, and donor levels for the communities they stood in solidarity with. The organization’s creative collaborations with its community-leaders to develop recreational and cultural programming brought together communities from different background, created outlets for exercise, and provided safe spaces for their communities to congergate, play, and celebrate the people, culture, and traditions they hold dear. Its approach to research partnerships helped develop and train Sawiyan volunteers into researchers, helping bring unique analysis and voice to the research and reporting that can often influence the framing and perceptions of their communities. It’s unique positionality within the communities it serves has helped engage, uncover, and respond to deeply sensitive, often seemingly ‘invisible’ needs that exist within Sudanese, Somali, Yemeni, and other marginalized communities the group serves.
In 2022, Sawiyan transitioned from a Jordanian non-profit to a completely locally and refugee-led movement. This process of ‘power ceding’ had always been envisioned and planned for by the movement’s co-founders and was deeply entrenched in the ethos of Sawiyan’s guiding core principles since the very beginning. A new chapter in the Sawiyan story led to a new emphasis on Sawiyan’s community-led educational initiatives.
The power of Sawiyan’s transformative approach to community-led learning, critical pedagogy.
One of Sawiyan’s most impactful initiatives over the years has been a community-led and taught educational initiative that intertwines English language learning, critical pedagogy, and cultural/racial empowerment.
The practice of teaching and learning English collectively among the Sudanese and Somali communities in Amman dates back to as early as these communities began to form in the city. Knowledge of English is considered important especially as the majority seek resettlement to third countries like the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada.
In late 2018, Sawiyan board member Dr. Shireen Keyl, Sudanese community teacher Mobarak Adam and Somali community teacher Hassan Abdullahi joined forces to develop an English language program that can reach greater numbers of learners. The program would continue to be run by volunteer teachers among the community, with the assistance of native speakers. They set out to find nearby community-based organisations in different neighborhoods to hold the classes, where a successful collaboration materialized with House of Hope in Jabal Amman neighborhood, and HelpAge International in Jabal Weibdeh neighborhood.
A photo of Sawiyan’s community-developed curriculum.
Paolo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy approach was integrated into the formation of our community-led English language program shortly after the program was piloted. These English language classes are spaces where teachers and students learn together. It is also a place where texts, passages and readings chosen for the different levels (beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate) contain elements of racial empowerment for community members with Sudanese, Somali, Ghanian, and Afro-Jordanian origins. Over the past three years, co-founders of this project Mr. Mobarak Adam from Sudan and Mr. Hassan Abdullahi from Somalia developed study books for the beginner, elementary and pre-intermediate levels that address the needs of our refugee community.
With class sizes rapidly growing, Mubarak and Hassan continue to add more classes and recruit and train new teachers in Sawiyan’s transformational pedagogy. Sawiyan’s reach now transcends boundaries, also offering remote classes open to anyone, regardless of location. Recent courses have had students from around the region, and even Europe and North America.
Learn more about Sawiyan’s impact over the years, it’s past projects, and the community-led language program at Sawiyan.org
Why Paulo Freire focused on oppression? Because oppression is dehumanizing. To be fully human is to have full control over what we do, how we think, and what we want to become. It’s a matter of self-determination. So, if we don’t attain self-determination, we will become alienated, will not have control over of our thoughts, creativity, and production. You can learn more about Paulo Freire and the development of critical pedagogy through the short animation below.