Construction

The LIFE Center offers education, hope, and community to the people of Aqaba, Jordan. Programs include women’s wellness (physical, emotional and social health), English language classes for adults, English language and leadership training for high school students, a weekly street market for local artisans, and a women’s poverty alleviation program. Not long ago, one participant commented, “The Center is the gathering place for relationships. It is a place of safety and trust, a place of opportunity, a platform where voices are heard.”

Since opening in 2006, several thousand people have been served by the LIFE Center. There is still much more we want to do, and we have a big vision, but we are limited by our physical space.

We were fortunate in late 2011 to purchase a 1-story building next to our original 3-story building. After minimal renovation, we were able to use it for one of our programs, extra classroom space, and offices. But that still isn’t enough space.

Now our goal is to add 2 more floors to the 1-story building. This will allow us to serve more people, develop deeper and richer relationships, and utilize our space better. Every single one of our programs will benefit. The new second floor will include a large multi-purpose room that can be used for seminars or program graduations or divided (with a moveable wall) into two classrooms. Also on the second floor will be a reception desk, private office and women’s dressing room for the wellness program. The third floor will be devoted to the wellness program, with special flooring and mirrors. This new floor will be larger than our current space for the wellness program, and the reinforced ceiling will eliminate the need for support posts in the middle of the room, as our current fitness room has.

Once we have these two additional floors, we will move our women’s poverty alleviation program into the original building, providing more space and better designed space for the women to work as they make marketable products out of recycled materials. And that will allow us to reconfigure the first floor for better office and program space.

We need to raise $240,000 to construct and furnish these 2 additional floors. Thanks to a generous donor, all gifts given before June 30, 2014, will be doubled, up to $100,000. Our goal is to do the construction over the summer of 2014.