A1SaudiArabia.com

MAKKAH: Thousands of foreign workers in villages and hamlets are complaining they cannot benefit from health insurance due to a lack of local hospitals and health facilities.

Trading and industrial companies which have criticized a new Health Ministry initiative requiring SR1,000 to be paid for each employee’s health insurance, have supported their claims.

“The ministry’s decision did not consider laborers in remote areas of the country where villages and hamlets have not been supplied with medical facilities,” sources said.

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WHEN Uzma Raheem graduated in Turkey with a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology, she had no idea that her destiny was to work with children with exceptional needs – her speciality was working with adult schizophrenics. She is from India but she came to Saudi Arabia as an infant with her parents and attended the International Indian School. “Saudi Arabia is home to me – I am not comfortable anywhere else.”

Her first job in Saudi Arabia was at Tender Loving Care, a rehabilitation center for Arabic speaking children. After nine months, she resigned: “I realized that there were no centers for children and families who cannot speak Arabic.” She began taking children for therapy at home on an hourly basis and her time was quickly filled up. “Then the summer holidays came and I found myself thinking: What am I going to do? I am going to get so bored! So I started a small summer group in my house. We had nine children, all with a disability or disorder, and we just had fun together, there was nothing commercial about it.”

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JEDDAH – The Muslim Educational Society – Jeddah held the General Talent Competition – 2009 at the Indian Consulate last Friday.

Students – both boys and girls – from various Indian schools participated in three different levels of the competition, which began in April.

The final round on Friday was judged by six personalities from different streams of life, who interviewed the participants and decided upon the winners.

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JEDDAH – Stressing the need for a heart to heart discussion between Saudi nationals and the large expatriate community, Muhammed N. Shoukany, Acting Editor-in-Chief, Saudi Gazette, highlighted the role played by Indian expatriates in the development of the Kingdom.

“Indians are a prominent community in our country, who are making an important contribution to the development of the Kingdom,” he said.

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JEDDAH – With the approach of the summer holidays, millions of the Kingdoms expatriates are preparing to return home for an annual visit. The preparations for the summer vacation that are being made differ depending upon the customs and culture of the expatriates home country, but one thing remains the same: The need to buy gifts to take to relatives and friends.

“I started preparing for the summer vacation at the beginning of the year, and I have been putting money aside since last year in order to have enough funds for this years summer holidays,” said Reema Mohammad, a Palestinian housewife.

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CARPE DIEM” is an expression that could be applied to the success of Hisham Kurdis career; for he seized every opportunity that was offered to him. He was fortunate, too, that his wife sacrificed her own career so that she could fully support him in his.

Kurdi is from Amman, Jordan, and is currently the Area Manager in Jeddah for Arabian Food Supplies. When he left school, he had only one option and that was to go out to work – there was no money for college fees. His dream was to be involved in the hotel industry: “But there was an obstacle: the English language. So I had to go and mingle with all the tourists that I could find in Jordan and learn as much as possible.”

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JEDDAH – The Pakistan National Circle in Jeddah is organizing relief work for the victims of the Swat region which includes hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced due to increased violence in northeastern Pakistan.

“Its our duty to rise to the occasion whenever such a humanitarian crisis takes place,” said Mian Mateen Aslam, the chairman of the PNC.

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JEDDAH – Many young Saudi and expatriate women who are unable to find a job and have no opportunity to go to college are becoming sales representatives making contact with women by telephone and visiting them in their homes to promote a variety of products, such as, lotions and creams, hair oil, and makeup.

Companies selling items of interest to women are targeting young women in need of a job to promote their products by offering them a percentage of the sales that they make. Prospective sales representatives are bombarded with emails touting the job as one which can be done in ones free time, requires no special training or academic degree and holds out the promise of earning a large amount of money.

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JEDDAH: Close ties between Saudi Arabia and Italy were put in focus by Ambassador Muhammad A. Tayeb, Ministry of Foreign Affairs director general for Makkah Region, at the Italian National Day celebration here on Tuesday night.

The big gathering (of Saudis and Italians) tonight reflects the high-level of relations that we enjoy bilaterally, Tayeb said. What has also brought us closer is Italian culture and food, he said and expressed his wish for mutual prosperity.

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JEDDAH: Leena Abdul Jabbar and Zuhair Mazhar of International Indian School, Jeddah (IISJ) have been declared the most talented girl and boy, respectively, in the general talent competition (GTC) organized by the Muslim Educational Society (MES).

In the girls section, Hiba Gulam Nabi, Mariya Syed Shah, Sumayyah Nizam (Class VII-VIII category); Reja Parveen, Dilruba Shereef and Pottambathini Swathi (Class IX-X); Leena Abdul Jabbar, Fathima Zeina and Abeer Pervez (Class XI-XII) were the toppers.

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