This is how young Saudis prepare to receive Hajj pilgrims

The Hajj season offers great opportunities for Saudi youths who wish to work as volunteers in Mecca, where a large number of young girls and boys take advantage of the summer break which coincide with the Hajj season, to find opportunities for seasonal volunteering jobs both in Mecca and in other holy places.

Most of these youths prefer to provide services to pilgrims, through volunteering work in government and private institutions which employ hundreds of Saudis and non-Saudis every season, in addition to other large numbers of volunteers from different regions of the Kingdom and in a number of specific jobs.

One of the characteristics that these youths share during their volunteering work of Hajj, is the smile which is always obvious on their faces, serving pilgrims who in return bestow them with blessings and invocations.

The voluntary work provides these volunteers with experience and opportunities in different fields.

Both Walid Hamoud and Maatouq Saraj describe this work as “a big opportunity” as they gain morally and get to learn a lot about different cultures due to the presence of pilgrims from all over the world.

Other youths who preferred to joing an institution to work as “Mutawif” like Allaeldinne Mandili, Abdulrahman al-Khawtani and Naif Samsari say the nature of their work is dedicated completely to receive the pilgrims and organize the pick-up and drop-off and assisting the pilgrims with information regarding specific locations and other services.

Talal Qasas, who heads the Muttawiffy Hujjaj South Asia Company, said working during the Hajj season is a privilege for the youth as they learn how to count on themselves and how to deal with people from different backgrounds.

He added a lot of these institutions hold workshops and training sessions to make the volunteers ready for any challenge they might face on the field.

A number of government sectors try to attract volunteers each year, including civil defense, the Red Crescent, Saudi Scouts, universities, a number of health sectors and private sector institutions.