ALJ Programs for Community Services (ALJCSP), a project of Abdul Latif Jameel Company, has announced a new program that would enable Saudi women to pursue their career aspirations.
To this end, a new institute — Nafisah Shams Institute for Technical and Vocational Qualification of Women — will be set up in the near future. Its goal is to train and educate 3,000 married and unmarried women under a phased program.
In a wide-ranging interview, Ibrahim Ba Dawood, senior general manager of ALJ Community Services Programs, told Arab News that the ALJCSP, capitalized at around SR300 million, has either launched or will undertake soon a series of programs designed to boost Saudization of the work force through various initiatives — from vocational and technical training to operation and maintenance, women’s training, incentives for scientific innovation, leadership skills, assistance for setting up small and medium enterprises (SMEs), taxi and truck ownership scheme, among others.
Ba Dawood said further that CSP also intends to provide 5,000 jobs for Saudis by the end of next year. Giving a breakdown of the figures, he said 381 jobs were created by the end of last year, while 2,119 job opportunities would be provided by the end of this year, with the remaining 2,500 jobs coming next year.
The announcement was made during Finance Minister Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf’s visit to the ALJ’s community service center in Jeddah. The minister distributed car keys to a group of youngsters who have joined in ALJ’s taxi ownership program. He also met with a number of young Saudis participating in various training programs at the center.
Muhammad Jameel, chairman of ALJ Community Services, briefed the minister on his organization’s various activities including its fund to support small-scale projects and its productive family program.
Pointing out community service is considered to be one of the major elements in the task of national development, Ba Dawood said the ALJ Group has been aware of its responsibility in this regard, especially in enlarging the presence of non-profit organizations on the social development scene. The second objective is the “Private Sector Initiative for Development.”
Inspired by its keen interest in social development, “ALJ Programs for Community Services” has been established to perform a number of non-profit activities, aiming to serve many segments of Saudi society — from training and qualification to development and education. These activities, which cover almost all segments of Saudi society, seek to encourage and assist these segments and help them surmount the socio-economic obstacles they face along the way.
He said the ALJ Programs target all segments of society through about 25 projects for social and humanitarian services. These programs are categorized according to the activities undertaken by the following ALJ funds:
ALJ Fund for Technical and Vocational Training and Development: This Fund has a capital of SR100 million and is completely financed by ALJ Company Ltd. However, it accepts contributions and donations of those who desire to support its activities and objectives. It seeks to develop the concept of technical and vocational training and development.
Another of its objective is to familiarize prospective young Saudis with job opportunities available for people with a technical or vocational qualification and to raise public awareness of the importance of technical and vocational jobs.
Other objectives are to encourage the private sector to help combat unemployment among the Saudi youth; reduce the government’s burden of securing jobs for young people; finance technical and vocational projects for distinguished graduates.
There are many programs under the umbrella of this fund. They include:
1. Participation in establishing the Saudi-Japanese Automobile Institute, which was officially inaugurated by Crown Prince Abdullah in March 2003. The institute seeks to offer advance technical training to young Saudis in the field of automotive technology and maintenance. It is a two-year course that provides job opportunities for graduates with the distributors of Japanese cars in the Kingdom.
2. Assistant Technicians Program
It aims at qualifying young Saudis who are graduates of Intermediate School Certificate and High Secondary School Certificate to work as assistant technicians in automobile maintenance workshops. The program is organized in the city where the trainee lives and is of two-year duration. An average of 100 students who graduate from the program are employed in ALJ Company Ltd.
3. Toyota-ALJ Technical Education Program (T-TEP). This was jointly established by ALJ Company Ltd. and Toyota Corporation in collaboration with the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training (GOTEVOT). The program is conducted inside the industrial institutes in the Kingdom to upgrade the standard of technical education. The program would be expanded in the future to cover the cities of Hail and Jizan.
Its aims are:
(a) To provide modern training to upgrade the efficiency of those working in the field of automobile mechanics.
(b) To boost the technical efficiency and competitive skills of graduates to enable them to fill available job opportunities.
4. Cooperation Programs with the ESCWA: A two-year agreement was signed between the ALJ Program for Community Services and the UN Committee for Social and Economic Cooperation for West Asia (ESCWA) in May 2003 to benefit from the experience of this international organization in the field of women’s training and qualification and to standardize this training for qualification in all parts of the Kingdom. Two programs are offered under this agreement with ESCWA:
(a) Qualification and training of women cadres in the Kingdom through workshops that are held in the various cities of the Kingdom. The program aims at developing the capabilities of such cadres and enabling them to develop their local communities through the organizations to which they belong.
(b) Abdul Latif Jameel Prize for Scientific Innovation (under formation). The prize aims at establishing a linkage between the various production centers and academic as well as technical research organizations.
5. Nafisah Shams Institute for Technical and Vocational Qualification of Women (under formation). The institute aims at preparing Saudi women to pursue business activities that fit in with their aspirations for a dignified and stable life. The institute will commence its activity in coordination with ALJ Fund for Technical and Vocational Development. The main objective of the institute is to train and educate 3,000 married and unmarried women.
ALJ Fund for Administrative and Leadership Development: MBA Study Program — It is designed to meet the aspirations of ambitious graduate students who aspire to occupy prestigious jobs, through the offer of an interest-free loan covering the tuition fees and cost of living during study abroad for an MBA degree. The main objective of this is to develop qualified Saudis for leading positions in the private sector.
ALJ-Toyota Fund for MIT Scholarship Program — This Fund was established at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1994 to enable young Saudis and Arabs to pursue their postgraduate studies in one of the reputed universities in the field of advanced technological applications, provided they secure admission to the MIT, but whose financial conditions do not allow them to pursue their postgraduate studies.
ALJ Program for Honoring Distinguished Achievers in Secondary School Certificate — For the past five years, ALJ has been honoring distinguished high school achievers in the Makkah region. During the ceremony, rewards and gifts are presented to students to encourage them to remain high achievers and excel in their studies.
Program for Sponsorship of the Gifted — The ALJ president is one of the members of the Board of Trustees of King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Sponsorship of the Gifted, which aims at discovering gifted people with unique abilities. It provides all types of financial support and caters for all their needs. ALJ donated SR2 million to finance the first-year awards of the foundation for innovations.
Training opportunities provided to ALJ staff to complete or upgrade their job skills, and to enable them to face the new challenges confronting the labor market in the administrative, technical and IT fields. During the past four years, about 23,000 trainees working in the ALJ Company benefited from the program through short- and long-term training courses.
ALJ Fund for the Support of Organizations and Small Enterprises: Fund for Financing Small Enterprises — This aims at expanding the base of people benefiting from ALJ Programs for Technical and Vocational Training and Development and to target those young Saudi males and females who are keen on self-development and eager to establish their own small projects but lack the financial resources to launch such projects.
The fund aims at achieving the following objectives:
1. Provide a real opportunity for the growth of a new base of small Saudi capitalist businessmen and to beef up their presence in the national economy.
2. Encourage the establishment of small industrial enterprises that would serve as a support to the existing large industries.
ALJ Program for Taxi Ownership — This program helps young Saudis own a Toyota (Camry) taxi, in addition to providing social and cultural programs designed to reorient public attitude to this new job opportunity of taxi driving in the Kingdom, which is currently the focus of the Saudization drive.
ALJ Program for Ownership of Trucks — This aims at providing facilities for the Saudi youth to own a truck, whether of a Toyota brand or any other brand in accordance with the objectives and advantages of the above program.
The taxi and truck ownership programs are considered a bold attempt to prepare and qualify Saudi people to work in this vital field, which is expected to expand in the future as a result of Saudization efforts.
ALJ-Grameen Program for Productive Households — This Program aims at raising the living standards of limited-income households through the financing of small productive and industrial projects undertaken by some members of these households to enable them to earn independently without relying on extraneous support. It runs with the technical cooperation of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.
Other Programs: ALJ Hospital for Rehabilitation and Health Care — Built at a cost of SR80 million, the hospital, since its inception in 1995, aims at training and qualifying Saudi medical and technical health staff by offering training to students of colleges of medicine and nursing, and health institutes at the hospital on the one hand. On the other, it aims to spread awareness among the students of health sciences in particular and the various segments of society in general. The operating cost of the hospital stands at SR160 million annually.
ALJ Project for Development and Support of the Red Crescent Organization in Jeddah — The Project aims at developing and lending support to the organization to enable it to carry out its humanitarian mission. It also aims at spreading health awareness with regard to first aid among the various segments of Saudi society. The planned time frame of the project is five years, during which the following is planned to be achieved:
1. Construction of a number of first aid and rescue centers for the Red Crescent.
2. Rehabilitate and train Red Crescent paramedics in advanced rescue and first aid methods.
3. Provide aerial rescue within the Jeddah region through the purchase of two helicopters that are medically equipped and to establish a ground communications center to support air rescue operations.
4. Rehabilitate and develop transport vehicles available to the Red Crescent and to equip them with state-of-the-art equipment, in addition to fitting out two vehicles for rescue during disasters.
5. Formulate incentive programs, both financial and moral, for those engaged in rescue operations to encourage them to be top performers in discharging their respective duties.
Prisoners Family Day Program — It has been established in the context of the company’s policy to expand the base of beneficiaries of its humanitarian projects that aim at serving Saudi society, especially those deprived of social contacts. The objective is to explore the educational, social and rehabilitation aspects of life involving a prisoner and to prepare him to become a responsible citizen at the end of his term of imprisonment. It is also intended to help him maintain his contact with his family members. The program involves one full day during which the prisoners spend time with their families and relatives. It consists of 44 living units that are fully equipped, in terms of both living and entertainment needs, to host this one-day family reunion.
District Centers Organization in Makkah Region — ALJ Company Ltd. is a member of the board of directors of the organization and contributes to the financing of the social and development programs undertaken by it at the level of Jeddah Governorate in particular under the slogan “Hand in hand for an ideal society”.
This participation in the organization aims at:
1. Instilling the spirit of good citizenship among various segments of society and creating an awareness of the need for behaving as responsible members of society.
2. Establishing entertainment-cum-social centers of a high standard in each district that would serve the families and young people.
3. Contributing to a solution of social problems within the family and among neighbors.
Tanweer Program for Helping Orphan Students — This is based on organizing educational and entertainment trips for distinguished orphan boys outside the Kingdom to familiarize them with the type and nature of cultural, social and academic life in the places visited. As for orphan girls, trips within the Kingdom are organized to enable them to see aspects of their country’s tourist, cultural and social landmarks. These trips are meant to be an incentive to orphans to continue their excellent academic performance and as a token of society’s solidarity with them.
In addition to the above, the ALJ Company Ltd. has done the following:
1. Purchased a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment and presented it as a gift to King Khaled Hospital in Hail in March 2003. This MRI equipment would help in the early diagnosis of disease and immediate treatment.
2. ALJ Center for Care and Rehabilitation of the Elderly in Hail (under establishment).
3. Development of a laser-based eye treatment center within Jeddah Eye Hospital.
4. Presentation as a gift of a catheterization equipment to King Fahd Hospital.
