Saving lives in the community: Amala alumna Saveen's first aid initiative

“I didn’t expect it would have such an impact.”

Saveen is a 21 year-old Iraqi Amala alumna who graduated from the Amala Global Secondary Diploma (GSD) in Amman in April 2024. Amala marked a step change for Saveen in terms of education: “at my old school, I’d just study, do exams, and stress out.” Saveen remembers often finding exams so nerve-wracking that she would cry. “Everything at Amala is different”, Saveen says. “Each student has distinct skills and experience. Our facilitator asks a question, and everyone shares their experience with each other. That was so different from the kind of school that I was used to.”

Saveen instantly found community at Amala. “We used to be like a family - seriously!” She says. “I love how we treat each other. We got so close as a cohort”. And the kind of education that Amala offers “makes you love to study”, says Saveen. “You don’t get bored of Amala. If it was Saturday [the last day of the school week at Amala’s site in Amman], I didn’t want the day to end”. 

For her Personal Interest Project (PIP), a core part of the GSD where students complete an extended project on a subject of their choice, Saveen, along with her close friend and classmate Adhraa, chose to focus on the topic of first aid. “We were thinking about learning first aid, and then it became about more than that: we were learning for our community as well.” 

“In the Middle East and Iraq”, Saveen explains,  “there is a lack of awareness in communities about first aid. We never learnt what to do in an emergency when we were young. That’s why I think we need to learn critical first aid skills, and teach it to kids in schools. We need to make people more aware.”

Saveen and a classmate during a presentation at Amala

Former Amala educator Rania connected Saveen and Adhraa with a doctor, under whose tutelage they learned for two weeks, before going to the Jordan Paramedic Society to get their first aid certificate and progress to advanced first aid. Motivated by the impact that they could make in their community through first aid, Saveen and Adhraa successfully applied for a Global Refugee Youth Network (GRYN) grant, and implemented their first project, passing knowledge onto people about basic first aid skills. GRYN asked them to continue, and Saveen and Adhraa decided to level up and become first aid instructors. Saveen passed with flying colours, achieving 98% on the exam. 

“Our families, as well as the wider community - are used to doing the wrong processes in first aid. For example, if they burnt their hands, they’d put toothpaste on it.”

Saveen reflects on the goals that she set at the start of her PIP at Amala, and how the project has grown. ‘We did achieve what we outlined in the PIP - and more!’, says Saveen. Through Amala, Saveen developed in other ways too: “I learnt how to think critically, teamwork, and empathy”. Ethical Leadership, one course of the Global Secondary Diploma, was particularly useful for the Life Savers initiative. “Adhraa and I are cofounders of the project. We have a team. So Ethical Leadership taught us how to communicate with our team and how to listen to their points of view”. She explains that in the training sessions, there are people of many nationalities, and it can be difficult for them to accept each other. “Iraqis and Sudanese talk a lot, and can annoy other people”, Saveen says, jokingly. It was at Amala that Saveen became accustomed to being surrounded by different nationalities. “It made me more social than I was before”. 

Saveen and fellow Amala students and alumni

The future for Saveen, as for many refugees, is uncertain. “I’m migrating to Canada but don’t know when. When that happens, Adhraa and I would like to implement our project and make it legal in our new countries.” Though the Amala Global Secondary Diploma opens more doors for Amala alumni, Saveen doesn’t yet know if she wants to pursue the medical path, or if she wants to continue studying at all. “I’m a person who likes to move, and not sit in an office.” Through the Amala GSD, she found a passion: for first aid, and for building the kind of initiative that Life Savers has become. To date, Life Savers has trained over 300 people and Saveen has successfully secured a second cycle for the project, as she continues to serve as the project leader.

“We did many things at Amala, but I had never imagined that I’d be doing first aid when I started applying for the GSD! The only thing I was thinking about back when I started Amala was about the secondary school completion certificate. I thought I’d go to the centre, study, and go back home, like regular school. But Amala is completely different. I wish we had Amala in Iraq too, because I’d love it if my people and my community could learn not just standard things, but how to improve oneself, like we did at Amala.”

Saveen on graduation day with the Amala Jordan team