200905262303

I am very excited, as just a few minutes ago, the pre-launch page for the Amman Centennial website has gone live. This is not a ‘coming soon’ page, but an open invitation to all Ammanis (and expatriate Ammanis, of course) to share their stories of THEIR Amman.

The last 100 years of Amman’s history, since the establishment of its first municipal council in 1909, has witnessed its growth and evolution from a village nestled among ancient ruins, to a promising town in the early 20th century to today’s modern capital of Jordan.

The real story of Amman is the story of its people: their memories, struggles, encounters and events. This inspired the idea to solicit these stories directly from the people, to be published on the Centennial website once it is launched next month.

For now, you can already go to the site and submit your story, along with photos or documents if you like.

The Centennial team at the Greater Amman Municipality is hoping for the widest possible participation. So tell your friends about this site. Share your own story or ask you parent or grandparents for one!

It doesn’t have to be a long story (although you it can be as long as you like). Nor does it have to be extraordinary. The point id to create a collage of memories on the net that draws a picture of Amman by Ammanis.

Check it out here.


Tags:

Comments

5 responses to “Amman is looking for its stories. Now YOU can write them..”

  1. Mohd Khawaja Avatar
    Mohd Khawaja

    Very interesting! I think it is a good idea to invite the older generation to post all their “special” moments during the old days of Amman..

    GREAT initiative! :)

  2. Tamara Avatar
    Tamara

    The stories that most people like me wish to to tell, no one at the official level wants to hear. Until we have a an honest debate about the city, its history, the discrimination, the corruption, the class struggles the incompetent planning, the wasta, the…, only those who benefit from all what is wrong with Amman will have nice stories to tell. So you will end up with propaganda.

  3. Narayanan Avatar
    Narayanan

    Awesome! I’m a huge fan of the Amman new visual identity, you guys rock!

    As for the story, I wish I’ll have some time to go about that during the weekend.

  4. Rami Avatar
    Rami

    This whole concept was stolen from our company, municipality came for some advice, we gave them the concept of the ammani’s and their stories, doing an exhibition of items that told their story of amman, photos, etc (in hopes that they’d hire us to work on it)…

    They took our ideas and fled to another agency. Can you tell me the moral of this story?

  5. Humeid Avatar
    Humeid

    Rami.. please don’t be too hasty in your judgement. We at SYNTAX have been working with the Amman Municipality for over a year and a half. We selected in an international bid to do the Amman brand, which we finalized and is which being implemented gradually.

    Telling the story of Amman is one of the key concepts we recommended for Amman a long time ago. The website we are developing has a short Amman history as well as stories of Ammanis.

    Incidentally, we also suggested doing a “story of Amman exhibition” to the municipality and it was not done by us but by the office of Dr Rami Daher, Turath.

    The website above will be launched soon and i hope you like it.

    I guess that ideas that are relevant to their time pop up in more than one place. I just wanted to emphasize that this was done as a suggestion from us to GAM.

    Thanks..