Saudi Arabia is full of social initiatives, and since young people are at the top of the pyramid of national development priorities, many initiatives have specialized in building the capacities of the youth so that they may actively contribute towards building a brighter future for their communities.
Qaed is one such initiative, which was founded by a group of experts from the Youth Leadership Club. Their areas of expertise range between individual and organizational capacity building, project management, information technology, and law, and between them, they have managed to create Qaed, a regional award-winning social initiative. They joined forces after meeting at a council in 2016 to share their concerns around leadership, and found that the secondary education years are the optimal time for gaining leadership skills, while at the same time being a critical stage for crime susceptibility. And because the market size extends to more than one million students with expenditures exceeding 323 million riyals from families paying for their children’s education, the team was driven to take an initiative.
In 2017, the founding team began a full year of studying, benchmarking, and consulting experts and was ready to receive the first batch of young people with leadership potential. From there, Qaed’s journey began towards building young leaders equipped with skills and knowledge, with moderate views and disciplined behavior, after fulfilling the acceptance criteria, which includes a test for leadership readiness.
Qaed encourages other youth organizations to make use of its resources, whether as pieces of educational content, or even by implementing an entire Qaed program.The initiative distinguishes itself through its educational plan, which covers more than 50 learning topics designed to address aspects of leadership development, higher-order thinking skills, and emotional and social skills. The founders are keen on developing these programs in a language and style that suits the target age group, making these deep and complex concepts easy to receive and integrate, while making sure that the methodology is compatible with practical research in leadership.
The team looks forward to seeing graduates of Qaed programs in leadership positions that will enable them to enact a positive impact on their home country.
One of the graduates of the Qaed program shared his experience of the initiative, which he found to be a substantial and fruitful experience, as the program empowers participants in several aspects related to leadership skills. The level of progress of the participants in the program is measured through a badge system, where each badge obtained by the participant indicates the level they have successfully passed, and the skills they have acquired at that level.
The program contains 6 badges in total, and the participant is required to collect all of them in order to be able to obtain the Sun badge, the final badge that symbolizes endless advancement and great giving, and indicates the successful passing of the program.
Social media accounts:
twitter.com/Qaed_TC
instagram.com/Qaed_TC
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcg0zKeRLcGxDUKXdMVCjUA
