The Duchess of Cornwall was treated to an electrifying tour of Amman today - hosted by Queen Rania driving a top of the range Tesla in stiletto heels.
Camilla accompanied the Queen for the 30 minute journey in the fully electric £90,000 Model X P90d, cruising across the capital city with a police escort to visit a children’s centre set up in her name.
The Queen Rania Family and Children Centre has helped hundreds of youngsters from Jordanian, Palestinian and Syrian backgrounds, and hundreds of refugees, with holistic therapies to combat the stress of gender based violence.
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Set up in 2005 by the Jordan River Foundation (JRF), one of the royal family’s central charitable foundations, the centre has devised a programme to educate young girls on topics which have often been taboo in the region such as personal hygiene, personal space and emotional intelligence.
Camilla was first introduced to a group of young boys and girls at ‘The Little Home’ initiative which is aimed at creating a safe space for children to share their feelings on violence or sexual abuse in the home.
Camilla chatted to several children around six areas that the youngsters can rotate around as part of an exercise to enable them to open up.
In these areas, the children learn to express and share emotion; safe touch; the circle of trust, helping to build self-esteem and self-awareness; safety in the home; and the danger of strangers, how to identify, run away and tell.
Speaking to one young girl through an interpreter, Camilla asked: “Do you like coming here? “It must be helpful to have your friends here with you and I can see you are all helping each other.”
At one of the stations in the room the Duchess and Queen Rania were shown a game where children who are between seven and 10 years old can use a whiteboard to take part in another exercise.
By drawing several circles, one inside the other, the children can place small figurines inside each one in order to say who they most trust in their family if ever they were suffering from distress.
Bending down gently next to one young lass, with her hands on her knees, once again speaking through an interpreter Camilla said: “It’s wonderful you can do this. You must be very clever."
After speaking to the child in Arabic, Queen Rania turned to Camilla and said: “We are all about providing an opportunity for expression for the children here.
“It is their space for them to learn and be themselves.”
Camilla replied: “It’s a wonderful place and so important.”
In a side room Camilla was taken to meet a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 who were receiving a life skills lessons on early child marriage.
Outside the playroom, Queen Rania took Camilla to meet several women connected to the Jordan River Foundation who have been helped to set up their own businesses in traditional Jordanian crafts.
At the first stall the royal pair sat on a bench while two women showed them their traditional methods for making rugs.
Queen Rania said: “This is one of the traditions that has existed for such a long time in our country and (as) such is in danger of being lost which is why we have to preserve it.”
Camilla called the women’s products “stunning”.
At one of the stalls Camilla was told about a partnership between JRF and the global furniture company IKEA which has provided jobs to both Jordanian and Syrian refugee women.
Since the refugee crisis began in 2011, nearly 700,000 Syrians have officially registered as refugees in Jordan, a country of only 9.5 million people.
The project aims to engage 400 artisans by the end of 2020.
Camilla was shown a range of hand made pillows which are being made for Jordanians to buy and help the women employed by the scheme.
Finally Camilla was given a tea set as a gift by one of the crafts people who told her: “We want you to have this to remember.”
The Duchess said: “That is marvelous, I will definitely use it, thank you.”
Before leaving Camilla was asked to sign her name in a plaster cast of a small hand which one of the children had made in a class called ‘The Power of Art’
Organisers said the concept is to show “a helping hand is always there to guide you through your troubles”.
