Bab Rizq Jameel (BRJ), an affiliate of Abdul Latif Jameel Community Services Programs (ALJCSP), successfully created more than 100,000 job opportunities for young males and females throughout the Kingdom within six years, during the period 2003 - 2009. Job opportunities have been created through different BRJ job creation programs, including training ending with employment program, direct employment program, taxi and truck ownership programs, small project finance, household support, work from home program and franchise program. Certain jobs in direct employment program and small projects finance have been created with support from the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) and the Saudi Credit & Saving Bank. During the period from mid 2003, when ALJCSP was launched and last December, more than 104,000 jobs have been created. Training ending with employment program created 13,590 jobs. The program is using a mechanism that determines needs of companies and establishments for Saudi employees, and then nominates candidates for the jobs. Candidates will then join training courses in the required fields, after which they directly fill the vacant positions. Training courses ending with employment included fields such as electrical engineering, sales, refrigeration, reception, food and confectionery preparation. In addition, there are courses for females, which include make up, nursing, cooking and compute maintenance. In direct employment program, companies send their vacancies to BRJ centers in an attempt to fill such vacancies with qualified Saudi citizens. In this area, BRJ succeeded in providing job opportunities for 16,312 young males and females, while the HRDF provided support to a number of such opportunities. Jobs created through this program included call centers, security guards, sales representatives, cashiers, goods arrangers. Monthly salaries ranged from SR2,000 to SR4,500. In addition, BRJ provided support to owners of new or existing small projects, provided that additional job opportunities are available. Since its inception, the program financed 7,966 small projects through interest-free loans at an average of SR50,000 per project. Projects were of commercial, service or industrial nature, and included beauty centers, laundries, home appliances outlets, confectionaries and pastries, ladies accessories, wedding theater decoration, sales of mobile phones and computers. In certain instances, the financing could reach SR 150,000, with a payment period of 5 years. The productive household program finances females in micro projects, and is based on microfinance approach (Grameen Bank). The program provides to working females interest-free loans ranging from SR 1,000 to SR 5,000. Since its inception, 63,263 females have been financed. The program empowers females to start productive projects, including handmade products, local perfumes, confectionaries or certain house services. Through taxi ownership program, BRJ successfully created jobs for 2,055 young males to work as taxi drivers. The program provides them fully-equipped cars, while the young males pay the value of the cars in easy installments during 4 years period, after which they become the owners of the cars. In addition, 1,054 young males joined the truck ownership program, in which they receive trucks to transport goods, vegetables, equipment and passengers. Fifa'a Al Feefi, a beneficiary of BRJ, said that she joined the direct employment program, and from several employment offers, she decided to take a job opportunity in IT department in one of the companies. Fatima Rashid said that she applied to the productive household program to borrow SR 5,000. She was planning to open a small workshop with a group. The workshop was successful, and her monthly income was greatly improved. Wadha Mohammed Al Musaad said she applied to BRJ's small projects finance program to obtain a financing for opening a tailor's workshop. She got the financing, and her workshop is currently operational and several Saudi females are employed in the project. As part of BRJ activities, Nafisa Shams Academy for Arts and Crafts provided training for 2,887 female trainees in several fields including makeup, secretarial works, and tailoring and fashion design. The academy launched the work from home program, in which 70 females worked from their homes to produce prayer rugs. Approximately, 2,000 prayer rugs are produced every month and sold to Toyota and Lexus. The training ending with experience program provides opportunities for young males and females to acquire experience, with support from the HRDF trainees receive one year training period, during which they also receive a monthly salary of SR500. Since the beginning of the current year 2009, BRJ created 31,669 job opportunities through its various branches in the Kingdom. This represents 83 percent of the total target (38,000 job opportunities) for this year. Engineer Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel said that ALJCSP has created, since inception, 104,000 job opportunities. He added that such result would have never been achieved without the help from God and then the support from governmental bodies in general, and the HRDF and the Saudi Credit & Saving Bank in particular. “Applicants to the programs and our team, which includes more than 400 young male and female associates, were crucial in realization of this success. During the present year 2009, we are planning to create 38,000, of which 80 percent have been achieved. ALJCSP is seeking to develop its plans and to inaugurate new branches in several cities of the Kingdom,” Jameel added. __
