Mobily to graduate 400 female interns

Mobily will graduate 400 Saudi women as telecom technicians in a ceremony on Wednesday. Labor Minister Adel Fakeih will attend the graduation ceremony.

The women completed a series of courses in programming and maintenance of mobile phones as a part of an ambitious project Mobily adopted in 2013 in cooperation with the National Women's Institute in Jeddah. The institute is a one of the high quality institutes supervised by the General Organization for Technical and Vocational Training.

The program aims to train 1,000 Saudi women in the programming and maintenance of mobile phones over the next three years.

Hammoud Al-Ghobaini, executive manager of corporate communications at Mobily, said that this program, will give these women the opportunity to enter the professional, vocational and technical market especially as the Saudi market has a high demand for such specializations, particularly women workers.

Al-Ghobaini said that Mobily embraced this development program in all specialties, because the company believes in the importance of vocational and crafts training for women as it can lead them to setting up their own businesses.

He said that it is important that women be given the opportunity to show their creativity within a suitable environment with the tolerant laws of Islam.

Al- Ghobaini emphasized the importance of the social responsibility of companies. Mobily achieved this by adopting this project in cooperation with various government and private entities.

The women participants were beneficiaries of charity organizations and social institutions in Jeddah and the neighboring provinces and some of them suffer some form disability.

Amani Al-Zayla'i, director-general of the National Specialized Institute for Women's Training, said that participants were trained over past months in an interesting and nontraditional way by Saudi trainees that were specifically trained to work in the institute. This training was carried under the supervision of the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation represented by the Ahli training which provided all the support and advice to ensure the success of this program, which is the first of its kind in the Gulf.

Al-Zayla'i explained that the program comprised three developmental courses including an introduction of maintenance and programming services (applications) as well as hardware maintenance. She added that the program attracted a high number of candidates forcing the institute’s management to narrow the selection process.

The institute cooperated with seven partners from charitable and social bodies which are Al Bir Society Charity in Khlais, Association of Neighborhood Centers Province in Makkah, Women's First Charity Association, Iktifa Society, the National Committee for Prisoners, their Families and Ex-Convicts (Tarahum), the General Administration of Education in Jeddah represented by (the learned neighborhood) and Social Education House for Girls In Jeddah.

Mosques open doors to women with children

Many mosques here have set aside special sections for women with their children during Ramadan, to prevent the youngsters disturbing other worshippers.

Officials at several mosques confessed that they had earlier restricted children from entering because of complaints by some worshippers that they were being distracted by the little ones crying and playing in the background.

Recognizing this problem, large mosques have arranged separate sections, while smaller ones have built tents outside for women with their children.

Mohammed Abdullah, the owner of a mosque, said: “We arranged a separate floor for the women with children so that other worshippers could focus on their spirituality in Ramadan. We want children above the age of five to visit mosques regularly so that they get used to it at an early age and are also involved in society and Islamic traditions.”

“The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has never discouraged children from entering mosques and do not support any such regulations, except stopping women from bringing younger unruly youngsters.”
He said the government would take action against mosques with such restrictions.

A mother of four, Eman Alnasr, said it has been years since she prayed at a mosque because she was afraid her children would distract worshippers. She also did not want to leave them with her maid for too many hours. “This year most of the mosques have arranged separate sections for women with children. It has become easier for us to pray without getting into arguments with women who don’t like our children’s behavior.”

Zainab Ahmed, a mother of twins, said: “Many women don’t like children running around while they are praying and sometimes they scold them for being a disturbance. It is good to have a separate praying area for us so that we do not have to worry about our children troubling others.”