PROVO — Mormon and Muslim millennials from several countries are working together to provide young refugees in Jordan with an alternative to joining ISIS or other extremist groups.
Rebuild for Peace launched in December. The non-profit group counters extremism by offering vocational training and education to refugees and at-risk youth ages 14-25. In March, the Jordanian government's Vocational Training Corporation awarded Rebuild for Peace a grant of $425,000 to build vocational education centers in violence-torn areas.
By the end of June, Rebuild for Peace had established eight centers in villages in southern Jordan, helping 180 students.
Rebuild for Peace is the brainchild of Christopher Lee Udall, who packed a toolbox when he served a mission to Villahermosa, Mexico, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When he returned home, he landed a job doing masonry work on the LDS temple in Gilbert, Arizona, before he studied peacebuilding at BYU-Hawaii.
"I had this idea that maybe I could combine vocational training and peacebuilding to help people in conflicted areas," Udall said.
Udall is on a fundraising tour in the United States. Rebuild for Peace is hosting a benefit concert at 7:30 tonight in Provo at Velour Live Music Gallery, 135 N. University Ave. The artist Su Grand will perform.
Jordan harbors nearly 700,000 Syrian refugees. Though it has a 29 percent unemployment rate, it imports workers to fill jobs in construction, plumbing and car maintenance. Udall's goal is to train at-risk youth to fill such jobs, denying new recruits to ISIS and stabilizing refugee populations and vocational employment in Jordan.
Udall had visited Jordan while studying at BYU's Jerusalem Center, but his idea didn't fully take root until he attended an international peacebuilding conference at BYU's Aspen Grove camp above Sundance in the Utah mountains. He met Nadia Oweidat, a Jordanian with an Oxford degree who was working at Georgetown University as a professor working on youth empowerment and youth problems in conflict. She put Udall in touch with a prominent Jordanian lawyer, Mohammad H. AlTarawneh, the CEO of Blue Umbrella, which works to build civil society in areas of Jordan most impacted by refugees.
Jordan's demographics make it a fertile ground for extremist recruitment. Blue Umbrella estimates that refugees now make up 40 percent of Jordan's population. Fifty percent of the population is under the age of 30.
Udall recruited Alison Dixon to serve as vice president and Theo Dye, a Brit, to serve as the group's European financial director.
AlTarawneh help Udall and Dixpon establish Rebuild for Peace in Jordan and introduced them to a network of tribal and religious leaders, including Father Nabil Haddad, a Melkite Catholic priest who attended LDS general conference and spoke at BYU in 2015.
Father Haddad, dean of the Saints Peter and Paul Old Cathedral in Amman, Jordan, said he is a partner and friend of LDS Church members.
Last month, Jordan's King Abdullah said the country needed to expand and improve vocational training in the kingdom, both to help young Jordanians build confidence, improve job skills and lift their standard of living and to help refugees gain exportable skills and self-reliance.
Dixon worked with displaced Yazidis in Greece before she joined Udall in Jordan.
In addition to help youth escape the lure of extremist groups, Dixon said Rebuild for Peace helps women who have never had educational opportunities and disabled people.
"Christopher and I are working to give the youth a new path for their future through vocational education and peacebuilding training," she said.
Rebuild for Peace's funding priorities are instructor salaries, tools and materials and grants to help students start businesses. The group has raised nearly $1 million in financial and physical donations. Its goal is to operate a $2 million budget in Jordan.
Udall said the group hopes to expand to five countries in five years.
To learn more, visit rebuildforpeace.org.
In April, leaders from the LDS Church and Islamic Relief USA described how Mormon and Muslim relief agencies have worked together closely since 2011.