JEDDAH, 18 January 2008 — In order to address what most people see as a growing rate of divorce in Saudi Arabia, the Charity World Commission for Women and Family announced that it would start in the next two months a project aimed at reducing the divorce rate by half.
The program is called “Family Engineering” and includes the whole family. It consists of five different counseling packages:
• For engaged couples, 50 hours over 10 days;
• For couples in their first five years of marriage;
• For couples with school-age children;
• For couples in their first 15 years of marriage who have teenage children; and
• For couples who have been married over 20 years and are preparing for retirement.
“We arranged workshops for a number of counselors where they brainstormed and came up with the ideas on designing the five packages,” said Amaal Khalifa, training manager of the commission.
The commission participated in Jeddah Summer Festival at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a trial run of the family-engineering program.
“The lectures were open for the public and participants filled questionnaires as part of a survey conducted by the commission. We used results of the survey to set the five packages. Now we have the five programs ready and we are only waiting for preparing instructors,” Khalifa said.
