Among the participants is the Jeddah-Intellect Group, a group of 12 young Saudi girls between the ages of 17 and 30.
Their objective is to develop analytical skills and respect others’ opinions. Amna Fatani, the head of the group, said they are a nonprofit group that cooperates with Bridges, a library coffee shop in Jeddah, to host their sessions.
Attendance is restricted to women only so girls feel comfortable. Among the many topics discussed is to respect others' opinions and human rights concepts.
“We cooperate with specialists in different fields and they come to present their talks,” said Fatani.
“We don't want to force people to attend and end up having only a few interested listeners. But we hold open sessions because they help us attract more young people.”
The group arranges sessions every two weeks, including workshops that help develop reading and analytical skills.
Fatani said they do not receive any financial support and depend on membership fees. “Unfortunately, businessmen are not enthusiastic about our project,” she added. She claimed that governmental cultural bodies did not seem to care.
Other groups call for an environmental-friendly approach, including the social enterprises Naqa'a and Al-Nabta. Mona Othman, the manager of Naqa'a (which means pure), said they promote a green project and work as an intermediary between different establishments that want to use recycling to save costs and be environmentally friendly.
Naqa'a, established by three graduates from Dar Al-Hekma College, has participated in Obama's Entrepreneurship Summit in 2010.
It has already attracted organizations and companies, including the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Islamic Development Bank, Dar Al-Hekma and Jeddah Institute for Speech and Hearing (JISH).
She said that the few recycling companies in the Kingdom are keen to work with individual companies.
Recycling companies are profit-oriented and prefer to cooperate with factories because they produce tons of paper per day, while schools, for example, usually need a whole month to produce only one ton.
Their goal, said Othman, is to promote the benefits of recycling to organizations, starting with those who hope to do something about the environment.
Their clients, she said, are advised on how to recycle. The cost, said Othman, is based on the client. “Large organizations are not to be treated like schools for example.”
Al-Nabta (meaning a plant) is another environmentally friendly organization that cooperates with schools, providing an environment-focused curriculum starting from grade one. They have been working with public and private schools.
The co-founder of Al-Nabta, Anwaar Abulkhair, said they are a non-profit organization and provides its services for free. Abulkhair said they are participating in this exhibition in a bid for sponsors. She added that parents were enthusiastic and wanted their children to learn about the environment.
