The Eastern Province’s Life Makers Club is a group of 40 active volunteers who hold programs to enrich the lives of young people in the community. The club is sponsored by the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY). Life Makers’ most popular projects are “Three in One” and “Living for a Goal.” Many of the volunteers are students at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) and King Faisal University. Expertise in a variety of areas is provided to the group by employees of local industry.
In an age when young people are turning away from reading, the club’s Three in One project is an attempt to encourage youth to re-discover books. The program promotes the concept of “read, present, spread.”
“Members can choose to read any sort of books — novels, non-fiction, biographies — anything that they find interesting,” explained Majed I. Al-Dobaikel, project manager of Three in One. “It is a book club where the member reads a book and then presents the knowledge gained from the book to an audience. The idea is that this will encourage others to use the information and share it with even more people.”
Al-Dobaikel pointed out that most young people no longer read books. They cite lack of time, lack of interest and easier information sources as reasons for abandoning books. While people think that it is admirable to read books, they prefer to spend their free time watching television or socializing.
“Unfortunately, young people think that the time for reading books is only in the classroom,” he remarked. “Three in One gives them the opportunity to make reading a social activity and it also allows them to build on their information processing skills when they share with others the new ideas they’ve gained from books. This is an important aspect of the process of young adults learning to think for themselves.”
Three years ago when the Life Makers Club began, they held most of their activities in the form of short courses in Dammam and Alkhobar. While these did attract hundreds of attendees, the group felt that perhaps they were reaching the most motivated young adults and not the ones who could be the most in need of encouragement to learn and achieve in life. That’s when the club decided to go directly to high schools and shopping malls — locations where they would have the best opportunity to reach thousands of young people.
“We want to help young people understand that when they make good plans for their own lives, then they will be doing something that benefits society as well. There is some religious aspect to this because when you lead a good life on Earth, then, God willing, the Hereafter will be a blessing for you as well. But this is not the emphasis of our program,” said Hisham Al-Jabr, project manager of Living for a Goal. “By the way, we welcome everyone to our programs, not only Muslim youth. Anyone who wants to improve his life and learn how to plan his future can find inspiration and tools through our program.”
The Life Makers volunteers were out in force at Alrashid Mall last Tuesday and Wednesday. True to their word, they engaged everyone who came to investigate their program. While their short-term courses are available only to Arabic-speaking men, women, men and children were enthusiastically welcomed to try the offerings in their mini course at the mall. Many of the volunteers are bilingual. It was fascinating to watch them explaining to an American expatriate the concepts in the Living for a Goal program and then asking him to write one of his life goals on their “Wall” of planning. They offered booklets to anyone who inquired about the project. These included activities to help people get started in planning for a successful future.
“We are extensively using digital resources to get our message out,” said Al-Jabr. “We have seen that our multimedia presentations always draw crowds when we visit malls and schools. We also have our website, www.life-makers.net to publicize our projects and help people easily reach our blog, Facebook page and YouTube resources. Wherever young people are, we want our message to reach them. Living for a goal is not difficult, but it needs planning and commitment. Life Makers is encouraging people to make the most of life and is providing them with the tools to achieve their own success.”