JEDDAH, 16 January 2004 — The Society of Makkah for Development and Social Services held a week-long training program in “occasions management” as part of its efforts to help Saudi women find jobs.
“From our research, we found that women wanted and needed to develop their skills in this area, so we asked an international training company to create a program for us that is suitable for our culture,” said Nayla Attar, director of women’s activities at the women’s branch of the society.
“Women who work or want to work in events management are usually not provided with the proper training or background information even though there are some fifteen jobs related to events management that women can specialize in. The nice thing about some of these jobs is they can be done at home and on a part-time basis,” she said.
“In general, I think women are better at planning and managing than men,” she added.
“I volunteer for many charity organizations in organizing events and this workshop showed us the mistakes we make and how we can correct them,” said Sahar Melhas.
Most of the other participants either worked in organizing events or in marketing and promotions at a private company and they commented on the success of the program while calling for it to be extended and for more workshops to be held. They all received certificates for having completed the workshop and the society keeps their resumes on file for possible jobs.
