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Feedback ForumNOW wants to hear from you! Send us your opinions, reactions and ideas about "Jobs for Jordan"Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Susan Comment: Yes, there are unemployment and economic problems (big ones) on the domestic front. Does that mean that international problems are irrelevant to your life? The EFE programs are brilliantly realized and to be praised. They establish a model of secular education and investment in the future that promises to add to the stability of the region. How can this NOT contribute to peace for all of us? Poster: Ali Siori Comment: I found it very interesting and yet informative. However, I would like to bring the attention of PBS to the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (www.qrce.org), which is chaired by Her Majesty and run by Her Royal Highness, Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan. The main mandate of the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship is to create high value employment that creates high value intellectual property that would be commercialized not only in Jordan but the globe as a whole. The QRCE is situated in Jordan's only science park, the El Hassan Science City (www.ehsc.org), to complete the innovation ecosystem, which the country lacks. This is a micro economy that will affect the macro economy. Thus, incubating Jordan's next economy, a knowledge based one. Initiatives such as these have a social mission as well. By solving pertinent problems that affect the country and the region such as water, energy and the environment, you would find solutions that could become also a profitable business that create lots of jobs. Jordan has been a great country for exporting minds. The biggest resource in Jordan is its human capital. I salute all the initiatives mentioned, the QRCE and the EHSC that provide a mechanism for brain circulation. Poster: whatever Comment: The Queen barely glossed over the unsustainable population growth rate in Jordan. http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?country=JO&indicatorid=29 Poster: n. ruggles Comment: I was going to response to the program on the high rate of young people in Jordan returning from college and undable to get a job but several other people said it much better than I would have. I usually think NOW programs are superb but this made me furious. We have a problem here in the U.S. that few people seem to want to address (media, politicians, educators, etc.). Our young college educated people (my son included) are struggling to find jobs that use their training. My son is discouraged, depressed and angry and feels he has been lied to by so many people. He worked hard in high school and college especially in math and science (and so many people are whining about how we need more science and math majors!)but cannot find a computer science job because he has no experience. Let's help our own young people first before we invest in training in the Middle East. Poster: Greg Schifsky Comment: Unemployment in the U.S. is rampant and getting worse. High School students and returning College students who are able and willing to work cannot find employment in the service sector industries because up to 20 million illegals have entered the U.S. and are willing to work under the table for less than prevailing wages. Those jobs were the ones U.S. students are willing to take, at a livable wage that also guarantes funds to help get them back to college. Shame on our politicians and NOW for ducking this issue. Poster: Lucky Lakeshore (Chicago) Comment: You did an entire show on unemployment and lack of opportunities in the Middle East without even mentioning the severe economic inequality and rampant corruption afflicting the region? Countries like Jordan are controlled by tight, clannish cliques who are loath to share the wealth with anyone who doesn't share their DNA and have the requisite wasta (pull, connections). And the only thing slimier than the governments are the private-sector firms there: after all, they are run by the same families. Of course, it would be hard for such realities to surface when your reporter seems to have come from the same privileged background and spends much of the piece fawning over Queen Rania. Oh, but how lovely and caring she looks, tossing out crumbs to the little orphans. It's too bad you didn't interview her about the challenges facing her subjects at one of her palaces. Poster: Jean Comment: I like watching your shows because your shows offer topics that are not readily covered on the television networks; but this story, regarding the unemployment problem in the Middle East, parallels many stories from many cities in the United States. Not too long ago, many of the television stations, here in Chicago, aired forums regarding the influx of violence among our young people. In all of the discussions, everyone seemed to agree that the lack of employment opportunities for our young people was one of the main reasons why there have been a spike of violence, in Chicago. Although I am slightly concerned about the unemployment rates in the Middle East, I believe that the crisis here in the United States is much more serious. The men in your story were educated men who had difficulty finding jobs but here in America, many young people are not only finding it very difficult to get jobs, their chances of receiving a college degree is diminishing. Our high schools are not properly educating the students so it is difficult for them to get into colleges. Some colleges are increasing their recruitment of foreign students because of the lack of good candidates from our high schools. The lack of jobs and the lack of education is making the streets, here in the United States, very dangerous because the young people have turned to violence because they feel hopeless about their future. While I have some empathy for the young people, in the Middle East, I am much more concerned with the problems that the young people have to deal with here in the United States. Poster: MBA Comment: As an educator/chamber of commerce executive who has taught in the public and parochial school systems throughout the past 30 years, I am most interested in this topic as I have seen vocational programs work as well as private/public partnerships and programs such as JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT along with volunteer business people work to motivate young people and even give them an opportunity to create real life working companies...perhaps such programs and volunteers might share in Jordan's efforts...do you have an educators exchange program? A Peace Corps for retired educators? Poster: Anthony Comment: This show was B.S. Why is that liberals are so concerned for Arabs/muslims? I think it has something to do with the fact they both are non- Christian. Do you see American youth sitting around whining about not getting a job to match their education? Which is generally poor due to liberal government schools? No, they go out and get the usual crappy U.S. jobs that government schools qualify them for, like fast food and retail. And due to more liberalism the American family is broken up so you kick them out when they are 18 like they can go out and get a half way decent job like when the Boomer generation was growing up. This “tradition” is left over from the liberal boomer generation as well as its pathetic reliance on government schools to raise up an adequate workforce which has not been working for three decades. But if that crappy high school diploma is not enough you can join the military which benefits from Americas crappy liberal/baby-boomer run government schools and they will give you room and board and even training which you will use to build and secure infrastructure in the middle east where whiney middle eastern men won’t go out and get a job while NOW wants you to feel their pain. These Middle Eastern kids stay at home with college degrees due to their traditions while our “traditions” our to toss American kids into the streets hardly prepared. You want us to sympathize with this situation? NOW needs to start looking at our domestic problems and let these other countries “take care of their own house”. We have enough problems here, I remember a recent show about American colleges in Saudi Arabia which was also equally ridiculous. If NOW does not like America just take your show overseas if its so great over there. Poster: OCGuy Comment: Why is American tax dollars going to pay for job training in the middle east? I can't believe that with all the people losing jobs HERE, that my government would spend my hard-earned tax dollar to train those lazy bums in air-conditioning repair. Sorry guys, but life isn't fair. You either eat or be eaten. To the lazy Jordanians: Nobody owes you a high paying job and America certainly doesn't owe you job training. If you don't like your situation, then get your queen to do something about it! Poster: Denise Comment: Don't you know that American young people, including college graduates, are suffering all these unemployment and under-employment problems also? Where is the program to help them? Poster: Charlotte D. Ford Comment: Jobs for Jordan was interesting. It seems to me our own young people often have a problem finding work. Colleges are turning out liberal arts graduates without asking employers their needs are. I like liberal arts for the broadness of vision voters need, but more specific job-related training is needed. One of my three sons trained in three-dimensional computer graphics. There was not work that would pay for housing and health care in this country. He has worked in Norway. That job is finished, and he will move to the Netherlands August 1. He has yet to marry. Poster: Lance Gin Comment: Commercial media spends too much time covering stories that divide us (regional conflict, terrorism, etc.). Its refreshing to see a story about how Jordan's young adults are dealing with their own version of economic and social issues that are experienced by others around the globe. More stories like this that deal with our commonalities rather than our differences are sorely needed. Thank you Mona Iskander and NOW. Poster: Lena Comment: Thank you for this outstanding coverage on unemployment in Jordan. I was most pleased to see you covered the social stigmas which stop entrepreneurial growth, and mostly stop young people from taking any job opportunity to build a resume, or just to bring in some income. I am a female Arab American and have spent time in Jordan. I have stopped feeling sorry for the youth, government, or lack of employment within the country. When my female cousins in their 20s where crying to me they had no money I went out and found them jobs as junior drafters in my other cousin’s architectural firm. When reality hit the girls had real jobs they said no! After all of my effort they said they “were unaccustomed to work”, and it would be “beneath them” to take a job! What bothered me most is that no one in Jordan respected me because I am from the US, put myself through school, I have no husband to take care of me, and that everything I have I did myself. They actually felt sorry for me, and treated me like I was low class! Yet when I would take off in a taxi to Petra, or go swimming in the Dead Sea with my American and European friends, my cousins (and other Jordanian youth I met) would be jealous of my opportunities. The hierarchal snobbery of the Arab World has created an entire culture of people with no common sense. The Jordanians believe they are entitled to live like their Gulf neighbors. No one in the culture respects farmers or crafters or working women. I had to work at McDonalds during my youth and I sold my hand-made crafts at local markets here in the US. So, why should I feel sorry for the Jordanian youth who refuse to take up summer construction jobs, or sell their crafts in a market because it’s beneath them? Let them suffer a bit longer...maybe then the culture will change. Poster: Christel Hignett Comment: I have 3 comments: 1. Why do the super rich Middle East Countries like Saudi Arabia, Dubai etc. not support their neighboring Islamic countries 2. The Jordanian official who said that Governments should make policy but the private sector should provide funding, doesn't seem to mind that the US Government is sending millions of dollars to their country for that purpose. 3. To the wealthy US person who sends millions to the Middle East countries, why don't you support the youths in your own country. We have many American college graduates who cannot find jobs. Poster: John Gamble Comment: I have to say, given the current economic crisis facing the average American worker, watching a story about MEN who consider it beneath their station to perform manual labor while American construction workers jobs are vaporizing, frankly enrages me. I am a liberal, but this program fits all of the right-wing stereotypes of stunningly out of touch left-wing elitism. A show on why the Islamic world needs to pull it's collective head out of it's collective rear-end, and get with the 21st century program might serve a more usefull purpose. The inexorable forces of globalism DEMAND from ALL participants a degree of supplication, and LORD knows Americans are kneeling, heads bowed If they can fly planes into our building, they are thoroughly a part of the modern industrialized world, no excuses, capisce?...Sympathy is the last thing I'm feeling right about NOW. |
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