By Amal Al-Said

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Saudi women made their presence felt in the AIPS Asian Congress here, as several female volunteers from Saudi universities participated in organizing the event.

The Director of Women Students’ Affairs at the Business and Technology University Sahar Al-Husseini told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the Ministry of Education decision obliging female university students to do 100 hours of voluntary community service creates harmony between the women graduates and the society. She said the universities are training women students to occupy leading roles.

In this connection, the university is training its female students and developing their skills so that they take up leading roles. She said that some 2000 women university students are participating in voluntary work in the university. This is a decision by the university and the Ministry of Education that prior to graduation from the university, every woman student must do 100 hours of voluntary community service. The female students are keen to take part in voluntary work so as to complete the required hours.

Then they fall in love with community service and request for an additional 100 hours. The university then trains the women students and she becomes a female commander and the university develops her skills further. Al-Husseini said the university has some 2000 women students and all of them are doing voluntary work.

She added that many of the women students go for volunteer work outside the university, like in charitable societies, ministries, institutions and others. Al-Husseini added that she has been a volunteer since 30 years.

She advises women students to differentiate between training and volunteering. Training in companies is that the female student will sit behind a desk. However, volunteeriing is in serving the community and it polishes the female student’s personality and makes her capable of dealing with others, she said.

The university has activated a volunteerism e-portal via which any authority can request for female volunteers.

She said that women volunteers from the university participated in organizing the Asian Congress, whose main organizer is the Saudi Sports Media Federation in Jeddah.