Iraq Al-Amir Women’s Cooperative

Project Objective

The Iraq Al-Amir Women’s Cooperative aims to help local women as they preserve local heritage. Unemployment in Jordan for women is around 33% in urban areas and is even higher in rural areas. The Iraq Al-Amir Women’s Cooperative, which was founded by the Noor Al-Hussein Foundation in 1993, aims to make the women in the area financially independent and to raise their standard of living by increasing their income and preserving local heritage. 

How TreadRight Makes an Impact

The TreadRight grant, delivered in partnership with Tourism Cares, will allow the organization to consistently have the necessary materials on hand as well as help to complete a build-out of their gift shop, as well as provide merchandising expertise, and allow the group to expand their food services, creating more income opportunities for the cooperative’s members.

Jordan Storytellers & The TreadRight Foundation

TreadRight Ambassador Céline Cousteau and a group of influential storytellers recently joined us on a journey of exploration and discovery in awe-inspiring Jordan, where we visited the Iraq al-Amir Women’s Cooperative outside of Amman.

Unemployment for women in Jordan is at around 33% in urban areas and even higher than that in rural areas. The cooperative was founded in 1993 with the goal of making the women in the region financially independent, as well as preserving local heritage.

The TreadRight Storytellers team’s goal was to gain a greater appreciation for and understanding of the Iraq al-Amir Women’s Cooperative’s important work and future goals and the struggles they might face as they look to achieve them and help share them with the world.

“As an organization, and with the support of GET, we are working to make travel matter. The Iraq al-Amir Women’s Cooperative is a perfect example of the kind of initiative that can harness the power of travel and tourism and use it to make real, sustainable positive changes in people’s lives,” says Shannon Guihan, Program Director of The TreadRight Foundation. “It was a privilege to be welcomed with such warmth and humor by the women who call the cooperative home. We heard story after story of lives transformed for the better through Iraq al-Amir, and the relationships formed there. Now TTC has the honor of introducing our audiences to those stories through our new video and by taking guests to visit the cooperative in Jordan.”

Managed and run by local women, Iraq al-Amir has provided training to more than 150 women from all villages of the Wadi Seer district of Jordan, teaching them to make beautiful pottery and paper so that they may have a space to come together and show visitors Jordanian hospitality. The handmade products are sold on-site at the gift shop and online.

The TreadRight Foundation helps support the Iraq al-Amir Women’s Cooperative through its People pillar, which encourages the cultures, traditions, and arts of the communities GET visits, seeking to enable these communities to experience the true benefit of travel and tourism through economic empowerment. This is achieved by supporting micro-enterprises and community-based travel and tourism initiatives that build a positive future for community members and their families.

TreadRight is working with the cooperative to upgrade the gift shop, provide merchandising expertise, and allow the group to expand their food services, creating more income opportunities for the cooperative’s members.

“We’re working together to help the cooperative to become a viable business,” explains Guihan. “The idea of creating viable economic opportunities through travel and tourism is central to TreadRight’s People pillar. The Iraq al-Amir Women’s Cooperative will be a testament to that.”