Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University recorded during the first semester of 2019 more than 23,352 volunteer hours, graduating approximately 1315 volunteers from university students in various disciplines and granting them a license to practice volunteer work. Currently, 150 volunteer students are trained, with the aim of contributing to achieving the 2030 vision.
The university worked according to an innovative approach to the strategy of establishing and organizing volunteer work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Through the establishment of (Nourah Al-Ataa Volunteer Incubator) which is a specialized incubator for volunteering and qualifying volunteers, according to the sustainable development methodology that was officially opened by H.E. the Rector of the University at the King Salman Forum for Youth.
The Nourah Al-Ataa Volunteer Incubator represents a future creative vision for sustainable volunteering in the country, so that this project is an experience house for spreading the culture of volunteerism, enhancing its role in the comprehensive development of society in partnership with leading voluntary bodies and societies. As well as organizing the utilization of energies and human resources inside and outside the university through preparing and qualifying them for national volunteering. The incubator developed the capabilities of volunteers, honed their skills in volunteering, granted them a national volunteer license, and qualified them according to the first and second volunteer license program.
These efforts come within the responsibility of Princess Nourah University in serving the society and achieving its strategy in the field of social responsibility and volunteering, to be an active partner in building and developing the community. As it has been keen to activate volunteer work inside and outside the university for the vision of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as it seeks through the incubator to contribute in raising the number Volunteers in Saudi Arabia to one million volunteers by 2030.
Among the most important efforts made by the University for the Incubator is the establishment of a database for volunteers and the preparation of a unified mechanism for organizing volunteering in it. Moreover, who obtained a license to practice voluntary work.
The university also established a platform (Nora Al-Ataa Volunteerism), which offers volunteer opportunities and helps members to join, in addition to calculating volunteer hours and issuing certificates that are monitored in the student's skill record, and has appointed community service units in colleges, deanships, and institutes to measure the community services which provided by Princess Nourah University employees.
Regarding a volunteer hours and counting them for employees, the university has included indicators concerned with this in its strategic plan project. In addition to the percentage of their contribution to community service (social responsibility and volunteering), which has achieved nearly 30% of the member volunteers outside the university, and 26% inside the university, and for students it has exceeded 20% in community service annually.
In the context of keeping up with electronic development and maintaining the progress of operations, the university has established an automation program to approve community service plans, which are submitted from colleges annually, such plans are reviewed by the Deanship of Community Service and Continuing Education to submit them for approval from the University Council.
The university also seeks to spread the culture of volunteerism through the establishment of forums and workshops to promote. As the Kingdom was granted the Guinness record for the largest gathering of female volunteers in the world, with 4995 volunteers, at the Corporate Youth Leadership Forum (Quality and Charity).
In another context and in conjunction with the International Volunteer Day, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Zanan, Chair of Voluntary Work Research at Princess Nourah University launched a number of knowledge products with the aim of enriching the knowledge of volunteering in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
As this knowledge base is important in the field of volunteering in Saudi society and the most important of them: the application (Inhalat) of social counseling, which contributes to solving problems and difficulties facing inpiduals by providing free social consultations at the hands of experts, specialists and consultants. The second is the charter of voluntary work to seek to spread a culture volunteering by emphasizing accountability and transparency increases organizational positive practices.
As for the third, it is the guide for volunteering in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is an important reference for institutions and inpiduals in the field of volunteering in which terms and general values for volunteer work have been defined. As it highlights the goals, motives and mechanisms of volunteering, the most important volunteer areas and their forms and how to attract volunteers.
