By Eman Al-Humood
THERE are many stories that we have read or heard of as children. The stories about a nation’s experiences or heritage are the ones that fascinate us more and remain in our memory forever.
“The Little Match Girl” is a short story from the Scandinavian heritage. The story was written by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The little girl used to sell matchsticks in the street until she froze to death on a New Year’s Eve. She was never caught anyone’s attention until she became a corpse in the middle of all her matchsticks.
Today’s story is about a Saudi female shawarma seller. It is a story that has nothing to do with heritage but with the reality of modern Saudi Arabia. It is a story representing hundreds of Saudi scholarship students who left their country for the sake of getting the best education available to fulfill their dreams. Male and female students graduated from reputable universities all over the world and were looking forward to coming back and serving their country.
Unfortunately, the truth is there are not enough job opportunities in Saudi universities or even in companies. As a matter of fact, many companies do not hire graduates with high degrees. So unemployment is sadly the fate of most of those graduates. Some graduates refused to give up to this horrible reality and opened their own businesses.
The best example is the case of Nora Al-Ghamdi who holds a Master’s in nanotechnology. Despite the fact that her major is a rare one in the Kingdom, she could not find an appropriate job.
Unable to find jobs in their own country, what most of these well-qualified graduates normally do is to migrate to any other country looking for jobs in order to survive. Some of them went to other Gulf countries while others returned to Western countries where they had their higher education seeking job.
Given the circumstances, Nora is not and will not be the only one suffering due to this terrible reality. All I can do here is to thank Awad Al-Fayadh who strongly supported this ambitious young woman but her dreams ended up selling shawarma sandwiches on Dammam’s Corniche.
We always hear that there is nothing shameful to doing any work as long as it is an honest work. So Nora’s decision should never be looked at by society as shameful. What is really shameful and embarrassing is what happens with those aspiring graduates who study hard and end up unemployed.
