The White House has honored a Saudi student of Nebraska University at Omaha for voluntary social service in jails in the United States.
Husain Ali Al-Sheikh, a student on King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, and his team of university students were awarded gold medals, certificates and letters of thanks for their voluntary service to educate inmates in prisons in Nebraska with the permission of the prison administration and the White House.
“After I completed my bachelor degree from the Nebraska University, I received a call from the White House to collect a certificate and the gold medal as a mark of appreciation from US President Barrack Obama for my efforts to educate prisoners in Nebraska as part of the university’s social service activities,” Al-Sheikh said.
He said his team conducted training courses on computer lasting four months to the prisoners, who responded with enthusiasm to the initiative, Asharq daily reported on Sunday. They also trained inmates on manual designing of greeting cards to be sent to their relatives, he said.
He said this kind of social work should be introduced in the Kingdom because it helps a lot in the integration of convicts to the society after their release.
“A large number of ex-convicts in the US and other countries find it hard to integrate in the society after their release. They are shocked and disappointed at the treatment of the society. The situation drives the ex-convicts to relapse to their old criminal habits and they finally end up in jails. This vicious cycle can be interrupted with effective training to inmates to make them skilled in modern jobs,” he said.
He said Nebraska is the only university in the US that has undertaken this kind of voluntary service to inmates.
He called on other Saudi students in foreign countries to undertake activities that would project a shining image of the Kingdom in the outside world.
The Saudi students should also strive to create a positive impression about them wherever they are living. He also stressed the need for achieving their healthy integration in those societies.
After taking his bachelor degree from Nebraska, Al-Sheikh is currently doing his master’s at the DePaul university in Chicago.
White House honors Saudi student for voluntary services
