Home: Jordan

OAI courses: Create Your Activism Plan workshop; Sharpen Your Political and Campaign Skills mentorship with Nancy Bocskor

Vision: Fighting corruption

Goal: Mobilizing public opinion against specific cases of corruption

Message: "Let's participate in fighting corruption."

Primary audience: Media establishment and journalists; Jordanian parliament

Secondary audience: The Jordanian public

How I deliver my message: Through the media

Coalitions/allies: Consumer-protection organizations; some members of Parliament; journalists

Current activities: Publicizing the problem of polluted water; managing Mobadrat Foundation

About Yusour and her activism goals:

Yusour Hassan holds a BA in Law from Jordan University. She co-founded Mobadrat Foundation, which offers media training, particularly for youth, and since July 2009, she has been the foundation's general manager. Formerly, she was a producer and reporter at Nourmina TV, covering domestic politics in Jordan as the host of the program "Qalb el-Sharea" (The Heart of the Street). She has trained a number of Iraqi journalists with the BBC in Amman, and was recognized as a Distinguished Reporter at Jordan TV in 2004.

What Yusour learned from her OAI experience:

• "The workshop taught me how to organize my activism work strategically.
• It opened doors for communications with new institutions and activists.
• It gave me models who showed me that nothing is impossible, and that people always need encouragement and successful models.
• By the end of the workshop, I was able to define the goal I'm going to work on, which is corruption."

The actions Yusour has taken as a result of her OAI experience:

During her mentorship with political skills mentor Nancy Bocskor, Yusour refined her plans. Her goal was to expose corruption, and with Nancy's guidance, she narrowed this goal to focus on a specific issue: polluted water.

Nancy worked with Yusour to build a case for support and made specific recommendations to sharpen Yusour's activism goals. Among the recommendations: to find a scientist or environmentalist to independently test the water supply; to interview a public health doctor who treated water-borne diseases; to shoot footage of raw sewage entering the water supply; and to interview a family who had suffered an illness because of tainted water.

Yusour spent several weeks researching and compiling information for her story, and discussed her findings with Nancy. On May 13, 2009, Yusour dedicated a special episode of her TV program "The Heart of the Street" to the issue of tainted water in Jordan. She discussed this problem with her guests, one a member of Parliament and the other an expert in the field of water and the environment. Her program drew high ratings and a record number of phone calls to the television station praising her work.

Empowered by her success, Yusour is now the general manager of Mobadrat, an NGO located in Jordan.