Eman Abu Sabbah AAUW International Fellowship 2012-2013

September 18, 2012 Presentation to the Empire State Virtual Branch: Intervening in Women’s Abuse Issues in Jordan

 Eman’s area of research focuses on investigating how Jordanian women tolerate violence against them and how it affects their mental and psychological well-being. She intends to study the effect of a psycho-educational program on the women’s levels of depression and stress.

 Abu Sabbah has a B.Sc. in General Nursing and M.Sc. in Clinical Nursing from the University of Jordan. Over the last nine years, she gained clinical experience from working as an RN in the maternal and pediatric oncology department, and as a lecturer for undergraduate nursing students at the University of Jordan. Her experience in caring for women prompted her interest in teaching maternal health courses, and also influenced her decision to obtain a Ph.D. in women’s health, particularly women abuse issues.

This semester, her primary objective is to complete her qualifying exam  so she can proceed to work on her research and collect data. The long term goal for her research is to empower abused Jordanian women.

To test a proposed intervention, she will  use this intervention among a group of women  in in a few centers that take care of abused women in Jordan to see if any modifications are needed before it can be used on a larger scale. Being able to develop an effective intervention will help decrease the psychological burden of women’s experience and improve their ability to make healthy decisions to end the violence.

Rehabilitation of abused woman to  to rejoin their families and community and create skill building programs will provide the women opportunities for new beginnings. Therefore, it improves their decision making abilities to resist the violence.

Eman will search for any possibility to collaborate with human rights institutions in providing protection for abused women and their children inside and outside Jordan.

Women in Jordan attribute their acceptance of abuse to lack of enforced laws. She plans to collaborate with NGOs in lobbying with politicians at the national level to institute policies that empower women and give them more opportunities to find suitable job. She intends to use mass media to raise the importance of the women’s  abuse issues and consequences on family and society as a whole.

Eman would like to share with those interested parties, the new opportunities available to help our women and girls and to see if there’s opportunity to establish some bridges between AAUW and some of the Jordanian NGOs that concern women’s  issues.

Getting an AAUW Fellowship

The AAUW international fellowship is one of the five grants that AAUW provides to help international students study in the USA. The AAUW Fellowship helps her in two ways:

1.  It gives her a sense of financial security. She is  responsible for meeting the needs of her three dependents. This fellowship helps her cover some  living expenses  in U.S.  Thus, instead of spending time on working inside and outside home to cover her financial needs, she had more free time at home to read and prepare for her classes.
2.  The fellowship brings her one step closer to completing her degree and achieving her goal of helping abused women  attain a better life.

Eman’s shared with us that it was an honor and extreme pleasure to be selected as one of the AAUW international fellowship recipients. The application process included four phases:

•   Pass an eligibility quiz
•  Complete the application.
•  Provide three references
• Send the many required documents

She thinks the online community for fellowship and grant recipients “The AAUW Alumnae Exchange” is a good way to keep in touch with other fellows and share new information.  The other way was to follow your news by being a member in the AAUW “through branch membership”.