Takatof offers the right way ahead

Faisal Al Balooshi, 22, who lives in Al Ain, joined the Takatof programme to help young offenders. Delores Johnson / The National

DUBAI // Young people working with the Emirates Foundation Takatof project are going beyond regular volunteering activities to help young offenders get back on the straight and narrow.

Some Takatof volunteers have been on a fact-finding visit to the Milan Expo to get a taste of what Dubai can expect in 2020, while others will be helping to ensure November’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix runs smoothly.

But it is those who have given their spare time to help young offenders see the error of their ways whose efforts are having a major effect.

A juvenile offender will spend time with a group of five volunteers, to see how they can change their life.

Mohamed Al Hosani, a senior manager in leadership and empowerment at the Emirates Foundation for Youth Development, said: “The juvenile centre is taking care of young people who have made small mistakes in life, such as petty crimes like stealing or getting into fights.

“With this project, after they leave the centre we want to make sure they have changed.”

The volunteer programme is open to all Emiratis and opportunities are found on the Emirates Foundation website.

Volunteers can work up to 250 hours and then graduate as a leader or captain.

“It was good for them to see how some needy families are living,” Mr Al Hosani said. “It helps them understand that what they have in this country is more than enough. They are Emirati, and proud to give to their country.

“It is changing a lot of people’s lives,”

Faisal Al Balooshi, 22, took a break from an engineering course at college to help young offenders.

“My older brother was leading this programme in Al Ain city and got me involved,” he said. “He told me about this project, to take a young man of 17 or 18 to help him.”

Mr Al Balooshi was linked up with a teenager in a young offender centre.

“It was Ramadan so we contacted him and said we could take him out for the evening. We were fasting and took him from his house for iftar,” he said.

“We took him to the malls and went bowling and then to the cinema. After that, we spoke with him about becoming a volunteer. I like to help others and to encourage others to take part.”

Volunteers also prepared iftar in Abu Dhabi and the Northern emirates during Ramadan for labourers and needy people.

Other projects have involved young people travelling to Tanzania to help out in communities there. It is a programme that could help out at the orphanage established by Briton Sarah Brook, who quit her PR job in Dubai to help develop the Sparkle Foundation on a full-time basis.

Tareq Nagham, a 26-year-old Egyptian volunteer for the Malawi project, said it is the perfect operation to attract young Emiratis involved with Takatof to gain valuable life experience.

“We need new people with new ideas and a new spirit. I think it will be good for them to help these kids.”