JEDDAH, 10 September 2007 — The National Commercial Bank (NCB), in cooperation with the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently launched a special training course for girls who aspire to set up their own home-based businesses in the city of Yanbu.
Engineer Mahmoud Al-Turkistani, NCB head of Community Service Unit, has signed a cooperation agreement with Secretary General Abdallah Al-Tammam of the Madina Center to serve the community.
He said under the deal, the two will collaborate in serving the community and contributing to the development of the economy, elimination of unemployment and promote young cadres to implement small projects.
Al-Turkistani said the bank has a role to support specialized programs to develop education, health, economic and social cooperation in all regions of the Kingdom.
The chamber of commerce aims to develop the contribution of women in the labor market, stressing that the experience in this area provides the appropriate atmosphere for the success of joint cooperation between the two sides.
The training program aims to qualify female participants and provide skills needed to launch their own small home-based business by preparing them with a clear idea of the project and how to conduct field study of the market.
The training will also provide women with the skills necessary for marketing their products and the sales channels that could be used by working at home.
Turkistani moreover disclosed that a special workshop program would be established after the theoretical study so that women who joined the program would develop the skills and abilities to manage their small businesses.
He cited the bank’s AlAhli Program for small enterprises as part of the community service bank, which primarily aims to provide employment opportunities and special mechanism to train small-business sector for young men and women.
NCB has trained 175 under the program over the past year, and 37% of the total succeeded in establishing their businesses from home.
