“We already have a plan on how, when, who and where to start. We also have an agenda for the voluntary work we are carrying out; it’s also going to be executed according to a deadline,” said Karam Khashoggi, group leader of the Young Initiative Group (YIG).

“We are taking shifts in helping the people of Jeddah who live in areas affected by rains and floods. We’re using our free time since most of us are students or have jobs,” he added.

Some of the volunteers already have experience in the field having helped with relief work following the November 2009 floods.

“I thank God that this year’s rain did not do much damage like the damage that was done in 2009,” said Mohammed Alawi, a 28-year-old volunteer.

“This year I came with more experience and skills of how to give a hand and I brought along my friends and cousins who want to get the same experience I got from helping people affected by the 2009 floods,” he added.

The YIG has been used to get youngsters involved in their civic duties in Jeddah.

“I received invitations from voluntary groups and individuals asking me to lend a hand and that’s exactly what I did. I got into my car and went to flood-afflicted areas along with a group of volunteers whom I had never met before. For the sake of helping people we got together,” said Ali Al-Nasser, a 25-year-old volunteer.

“I happen to have a pickup truck which I later used to move trees from streets to make way for cars,” he added.

The group has also designed an online Google spreadsheet where volunteers can sign up and see each other’s contact details to make networking easy.

“The Google spreadsheet shows our direct contacts and how we can help. It also contains an action plan. Our aim is to screen the streets looking for areas that need to be cleaned. We then call a number of volunteers to join and start the cleaning process,” said Maha Taher, co-founder of YIG.

“We have used this method before and it was a great success; we plan to use it over and over again as it works in organizing voluntary work. This has been made easy thanks to Google,” she added.

This year’s flood crisis has not been like the one that happened in 2009, said Rasha Hefzi, founder of the Muwatna volunteer group.

“We are going to visit the areas that have the largest number of damaged houses. We will clean the homes of people who had to evacuate them due to damage caused by rain,” she said.

“We are coordinating with the Civil Defense to locate houses and joining forces with them to clean them in the shortest time possible,” she said.

“For the time being, I don’t think we will be packing food boxes for poor people like we did in 2009 ... we might pack food and clothes boxes when needed,” Hefzi added.