In a working paper on voluntary work, Al-Atifi wrote there is not enough public awareness about voluntary work among the citizens. “The little volunteering we have in Saudi Arabia is done randomly and lacks organization and coordination. There is no or little material and moral support, and no encouragement or incentives,” he said.

Al-Atifi recalled conducting a survey among a number of young Saudi men and women, in which he found out that 70 percent of them did not receive invitations or calls for any kind of voluntary work. “About 38 percent of those surveyed said they feared taking any responsibility, while 35 percent of them said they simply did not have time for voluntary work,” he said.

He added that this indicated the failure of pioneers in voluntary work and of welfare societies in presenting their message to people. “The youth, especially the educated, are also to blame for being ignorant of the message of voluntary work, and its results on them as individuals and as a society,” he said.

According to Al-Atifi, about half of the adult Americans are doing voluntary work at the rate of 135,000 hours a year; in total, there are more than 90 million volunteers in the United States. He said the league on non-profitable universities in the US comprised about 100 universities with specializations in non-profitable and voluntary work. The support of some Western countries to voluntary and non-profitable projects reached US$ 11 billion per year. “Government support to welfare societies and voluntary organizations constitutes about 65 percent of their budgets,” he added.

Al-Atifi said the West had taken great strides in the voluntary field, to the extent that this kind of work had become a duty. “Although our Islamic religion urges its followers to be charitable, we are still far behind in this field.”

Talking about impediments to voluntary work in the Kingdom, Al-Atifi said that there were many and of great variety. A main limitation, according to him, was that people had become more self-centered, focusing mostly on improving their own living standards. Some citizens did not have confidence in people in charge of charity organizations or the cooperatives. “There are a lot of procedures that complicate the road for citizens wishing to join voluntary organizations,” he said.

The main detrimental factor behind the spread of voluntary work, however, was the lack of awareness about the importance of volunteering and charity actions. “The media should give much attention to this aspect to make people aware of the significance of volunteering and charity,” he said.

Al-Atifi asked voluntary societies to assist the volunteers more, as well as to initiate programs that could attract them. He suggested that college and university students be asked to do some voluntary work, and that this work be included in the court verdicts.

He recalled some Western countries with more than 35,000 voluntary and charity organizations, and said all Arab and Islamic countries together did not have this number.

As stated by Al-Atifi, there are 240 charity organizations in the Kingdom with 49,000 members, including 23 for women, with a combined budget of about SR900 million. He said more than 2,600 members were women and added that these organizations had a total work force of 6,430 employees.