JEDDAH — The Scouts Administration at the College of Education in Jeddah has beefed up its social service activities in Ramadan.
A group of young scouts visited King Fahd General Hospital (KFGH) on Wednesday as part of the program.
The administration organizes various visits all year round but dedicates special visits to hospitals during Ramadan to give scouts an understanding of the pain of others.
President of the Students’ Activities Administration in Jeddah Anas Abu Dawoud and Director of Scouts’ Activities Ali Al-Amri accompanied the 20 scouts during Wednesday’s visit.
Dr. Abdulminim Sheikh, manager at KFGH, welcomed the scouts and took them on a tour around the dentistry division.
The schoolchildren, who came from the Dar Al-Marifah School, the Omair ibn Saad Elementary and the Heraa Intermediate School, were given an opportunity to visit sick children and elderly people at the hospital.
“This trip is just one of the many activities that we carry out to emphasize the value of social service on the scouts from an early age. That is why we concentrate on those that are of the elementary and intermediate levels,” said Yousri Al-Badawi, the organizer of the visit.
Mohammed Ba-Younis, a scout leader, told Arab News that the trip was beneficial for both the schoolchildren and patients.
“A lot of these patients do not have any relatives. It was good to see these youths visiting them, bringing flowers and Qur’an as gifts, and praying for the patients to get better,” he said.
The scouts also distributed prepared meals on the streets to people who had not yet reached home for iftar.
Ba-Younis said that so far three groups — each consisting of 20 scouts — distributed around 2,000 meals at various locations across Jeddah. The scouts have been willingly partaking in this project since Tuesday.
“For this project we focused on intermediate and high school students because it was easier to teach them road safety rules and ensure nothing goes wrong,” he added.
The scouts also help clean up mosques where iftar meals are distributed.
According to Ba-Younis, Jeddah alone has around 120 scout teams, each with 30-40 scouts, in addition to 10 marine scouts. They are all officially registered at the Scouts Administration, and certificates and ranks are awarded depending on the type of work they carry out. A ceremony is held at the end of each year to reward the best scouting team.
