A workshop was recently held for the teams participating in the sixth ‘Big Give Competition', to help them generate creative ideas and develop abilities around volunteer work.

This was organised by Dar Al Atta’a in cooperation with the Shell Development Company - Oman under the title of ‘Bright ideas for community projects’. 

Dar Al Atta’a and Shell Intilaaqah’s focus was to train students from different universities and colleges in the field of Project Management, and help them with the knowledge and skills they will need in the implementation of their projects in the ‘Big Give Competition’ this year.

Muna Al Shekaili, Director General of External Affairs at Shell Development Oman said, “Shell’s collaboration with Dar Al Atta’a Association is continuous and comes as part of commitment towards the community development and is based on the company’s interest of social responsibility in the Sultanate.”

She added that it provides training, consultancy and workshop services for the ambitious Omani youth who are interested in starting and developing their businesses.

May Al Bayat, Head of Dar Al Atta’a marketing department said the idea of the competition is based on formation of university and college student teams to compete with to come up with a fund raising idea and implement it to benefit Dar Al Atta’a programmes.

Al Bayat added that the competition will start in the second semester of 2016/2017. The teams will be competing for the following categories- Best idea, best project implementation, most publicity awareness and most funds raised.

Safa Abdullah Al Farsi, a student from the Higher College of Technology (HCT) in Muscat said, “We formed a team and named it “pioneers of volunteerism”, and we have three ideas such as a running race, visual shows and competitions, and aim to collect funds to build a home for a needy family.”

Another student, Reham Mohammed Al Ghussaini from the College of Economics and Political Science at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) said, “We are a team called ‘Maysam’ and we have a few ideas, including a campaign to distribute gifts and donations to orphans and others, and to communicate with an orphanage to support them through.”

The Big Give Competition won the first place in Sultan Qaboos Award for Volunteerism in its fourth season. This year’s competition will start from April and end by mid July with 18 teams participating.

Source: Timesofoman