With their nonprofit organization, Rebuild For Peace, Christopher Udall and his wife, Alison, said they have helped refugees in Jordan by teaching vocational skills and giving at-risk youth a chance at a new life. He has opened 15 schools in Jordan for refugees, he said, and in two years, the organization has raised more than $1 million for its cause.
Udall, president of Rebuild For Peace, shared his story during a presentation in the Aloha Center on Feb. 15. His former photography teacher, Instructor Monique Saenz, gathered students from her classes to hear his story of service and to see his photos.
Saenz told her classes, “I can see this is definitely what we hear about President McKay’s vision of people going out of this school and helping others to establish peace internationally. You can see the hands of Heavenly Father helping him and his wife.”
Udall graduated from BYUH in 2016 with a major in peacebuilding and with certificates in photography and anthropology. Alison Udall, vice president of Rebuild For Peace, worked in refugee camps in Greece before moving to Jordan and meeting her husband.
Udall said his love for the Middle East began when he attended the BYU Jerusalem Center. He said he shifted his focus from photography to human rights and resolving conflict.
Restoring a castle
According to Udall, the day he flew into Jordan, ISIS attacked a 13th century French crusader castle and shot a group of tourists. He said, “What was fascinating and terrible is that the members of ISIS who attacked the castle were also local youth who had been recruited into ISIS.”
By using his certificate in anthropology, Udall said he was able to introduce himself to the Jordanian government as a certified cultural anthropologist.
The students in the village of Karak wanted to rebuild the castle, he continued, because they knew the people who attacked it. The students wanted to hang a banner from the walls saying, “In the wake of violent conflict, we will rebuild for peace.” Udall said he was inspired to name his organization from this statement.
Udall said he was able to use his contacts in the government to obtain half a million dollars to give back to the communities. At this point, Udall said he had not founded Rebuild For Peace. However, he said he found a charity to run the money through to start helping people.
Growing up in anger
According to Udall, his organization goes to villages with high recruitment statistics for ISIS. Initially he thought he was going to teach vocations like auto repair or welding, but he said most of his students are women. In Jordan, skills such as sewing, cosmetology and clothing manufacture are in demand, he said.
The tribal leaders would tell Udall, “Our daughters are growing up in anger.” This was a common phrase in these communities. Udall said, “It was the women who were unfortunately less educated.”
Udall said he also learned the women were encouraging their male family members to join extremist groups.
Udall explained, “All they, [the women], had to do was go to the mosque and go home. There’s really not any other place for them to go to interact and learn socially. They would get radicalized in these mosques, go home and encourage their loved ones to do something about what they had been told.”
Rebuild For Peace started to teach more women, although it did have male vocational centers as well. Udall said, “It impacted the community so drastically. My wife is an expert in rural women’s economic development, and when I started telling her all our centers were for women, she was very excited and put her skills to work.”
Going to Ma’an
Udall said he visited Ma’an, a village in southern Jordan. According to Udall, the ISIS flag is flown there and the Jordanian embassy dissuades foreigners from visiting.
Despite the embassy insisting he would be killed if he went to Ma’an, Udall decided to go. “I felt I needed to be there. We believe completely that the person facing a problem has a solution. I never went in thinking I could solve their problems simply because I had a peacebuilding degree, but I asked the tribal chiefs what the problem was.”
When the tribal chiefs told Udall their women were growing up in anger, he asked what the women needed and chiefs told him they need something they can do from the home where they can gather as women.
At his talk on campus, Udall showed a picture of a teenage girl named Rima. “She is from Ma’an – a town so conservative, the parents wouldn’t let their daughters attend our programs. The instructor we hired from the community went to every single women’s home to sign them for our classes, one where they were taught to make keffiyehs.”
A keffiyeh is a traditional headscarf worn by both men and women in Middle Eastern countries. Although they are worn in the Middle East, most modern keffiyehs are made in China, according to Udall.
“Rima started making keffiyehs. She made her first one in six days. [She] sold it for the equivalent of 40 U.S. dollars. She made a second one and sold it for the equivalent of 50 U.S. dollars. That was more than her parents made. Pretty soon her parents were pretty excited about her working.
“Word got around and soon all of the women showed up. People couldn’t send them to school fast enough,” Udall said. “Our approach is that any student who comes to our school should make money within the first week of being there. That teaches them this is directly valuable, and the more work you get the more financial return.
“Rima is kind of my hero. She started taking this class, making keffiyehs, selling them at tourist sites like Petra, and then she reached out to us in an interview.
"She was making enough money that she’s now paying for her younger sister to go to university and is about to make enough money to go to university herself."
The salon in the desert
Udall also showed a picture of a village in the Jordanian desert called Tafilah. It was of a cosmetology salon set up by locals there who had gone through his vocational training.
“That was the first cosmetology salon they'd ever had,” Udall said. “It was a place where women could gather and talk gossip, take off their hijab and let their hair down. The community changed. A girl’s father mortgaged his home to build the salon and now people travel for miles to it. Especially women who want to get their hair and make-up done for their wedding.”
Udall’s advice about certificates
According to Udall, of all the classes he took at BYUH, photography, videography, graphic design and web page design helped him make the most money. He said, “They helped me start up an organization without having to spend a fortune hiring people to do it for me.
“The certificate programs are absolutely worth their weight in gold, even if you have to take some time [to complete them]. Even though I’m definitely not the best photographer, videographer or web page designer, it got our foot in the door, made us look professional and helped us get a lot more money for our organization. Our blog and webpage is run by my wife and some British interns.”
Speaking of certificates, Udall said, “It’s important. You never know where they’re going to take you. The certificate I got in videography and photography helped me when I first got to Jordan.
“It gave me journalist status within the kingdom, meaning I was allowed to enter a refugee camp. They’re kind of locked down like military bases and very difficult to get into. I needed to get in to do some work for Rebuild For Peace.”
Zipporah Kwok, a junior from Hong Kong majoring in graphic design and psychology, said, “[Udall] is just an ordinary guy, but he was able to make such a connection with the people in Jordan. Even the leader of the country recognized what he did for Jordan. It was really inspiring to me. It made me think how I could do great things too.”
On the Rebuild For Peace website, there is a blog where visitors can read about each of the women whose lives have changed because of the vocational skills they were taught. It also includes their stories and what motivates them, said Udall.
Writer: Elijah Hadley