Abu Dhabi-: The Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an has conducted a series of volunteering events across Abu Dhabi to encourage the emirate’s residents to engage, collaborate, and give back to the community. The activities brought together volunteers of varying ages and backgrounds to hone their skills and interests in-line with Ma’an’s commitment to addressing social priorities and enabling the Third sector.
As part of Ma’an’s efforts to protect the environment, it provided volunteers with the opportunity to lead the impactful environmental initiative, ‘Community Clean Up’, which aims to engage 500 volunteers from the general public, school students, and artists in various mass clean-ups of the environment. Volunteers target specific areas in Abu Dhabi to collect and segregate waste before creating art pieces from it and then potentially auctioning the works off.
Aligning with the directives of the UAE leadership and Ma’an’s overarching goal to foster a culture of collaborative social responsibility, the Authority supports senior citizens and residents through several initiatives including Journey of Generations, which is an intergenerational engagement program designed to bridge the communication gap between senior citizens and residents and volunteers from the younger generation.
The program addresses the seniors’ challenges of inclusion, activation, and health. In collaboration with Ma’an and private sector organizations, a group of volunteers organise walks regularly in different locations across Abu Dhabi. The most recent walk was a bona fide success, engaging several volunteers and seniors, exchanging valuable knowledge and experiences.
Ma’an’s Community Volunteering programmes cover a range of issues including physical and mental health, the environment, loneliness, domestic violence, substance abuse and female empowerment, amongst others, and look to benefit up to a large population of citizens and residents including people of determination, seniors, at-risk youth, blue collar workers, women, and society at large.
Volunteers interested in signing up for future activities can visit https://maan.gov.ae/volunteer/ or download Ma’an’s dedicated mobile app for more information.