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Kuwaiti youths face many challenges in volunteering

Volunteer Fai Al-Fahad
Volunteer Fai Al-Fahad

By Arwa Al-Wagayan

KUWAIT, Aug 25 (KUNA) -- Volunteering has been rapidly growing among Kuwaiti youths who have shown relentless desire to help the needy abroad.
Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) met with a number of male and female youths. Some of them did volunteer while others encountered many difficulties while volunteering.
The two groups agreed that volunteering in Kuwait has limited fields, while helping the others abroad was usually restricted on a certain segment of people, like social media celebrities, or the rich.
Volunteering is creative, they agreed, because it took you to new places, alleviating suffering of people either through financial, material or moral means.
Jarrah Al-Jassar said he wanted to volunteer but NGOs have weak media. He said that he has a lot of free time and wanted to fill it up with something useful, but "I don't know to whom I should go to." Maryam Al-Faraj said she started volunteering when she was 19 years old in a hospital in the US specialized in nutrition of children.
She said that she volunteered through a charity's website and this entire experience of helping the others was a blessing.
She said volunteering domains in Kuwait were usually limited. "There are no websites that can guide you to an institution to apply for," Al-Faraj said.
Athoob Al-Shuaibi, a volunteering photographer, said travelling at her own expense started to create a burden although she did not mind.
The volunteers should be treated like social media celebrities, she believed.
Fai Al-Fahad, who started volunteering when she was in elementary school in Kuwait, said she joined a team to help the Syrian refugees in Jordan after winning her family's consent to travel.
She said that after her first trip, she felt that she have found something she has been chasing for a long time, the feeling a person felt when helping the others.
Al-Fahad complained that some civil society organizations, which she did not name, were not welcoming new volunteers unless he or she has a donation to give.
Ameera Al-Khaldi said there were many girls who wished to volunteer either inside Kuwait or abroad, but some conservative families refused to allow the girl to travel.
She said volunteering in Kuwait lacked proper arrangement and professionalism.
Anwar Al-Hasawi, Vice-Chairman of Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRSC), said the society was receiving volunteers from 16 years old.
He said KRSC was offering many volunteering activities, citing the visits to the social care center, hospitals and serving worshippers during the holy month of Ramadhan.
A volunteer will be taking a course in humanitarian law and first aid, he said, so he or she would be fit to volunteering.
The KRSC has its doors wide open for Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti volunteers, said Al-Hasawi, with the objective of teaching them to love to help the others. (end) akw.bs