Bank Sohar Sponsors Global Conference for Youth Development

Building on its commitment to empower the youth and build the future generation of the nation’s leaders, Bank Sohar recently sponsored the Shape MENA forum in Oman, an initiative of World Economic Forum (WEF), held between the 7^th and 9^th of December 2018. The immersive three day event hosted 100 young participants with different professional backgrounds from across the Arab world, engaging them in a range of knowledge sharing sessions under the theme of ‘Creating Shared Value – Promoting People, Planet, and Productivity’. 

At a range of venues across Muscat, the Global Shapers Community (GSC) and its local affiliates known as ‘Muscat Hub’ hosted ample interactive sessions between participants, including panel discussions, brainstorming and reflection sessions, and simulation workshops on real-world situation and processes.

Commenting on the bank’s sponsorship, Mr Khalil Al Hedaifi, Chief Retail Banking Officer at Bank Sohar, said, “As a nation, Oman has achieved incredible milestones over the last 48 years, and by sponsoring this conference we facilitated an important contribution to the nation’s progressive vision. Oman’s agenda for development across all fronts is centered on enabling its people, especially its youth as the nation’s major demographic based on their capacity for growth within an increasingly global context. ShapeMENA delivered insights and expertise of great value to a wide range of local communities in support of crafting new motivated perspective for youth involved in causes, start-ups, and societal development”.

Segmented as per the theme of the event, the conference’s focus on ‘People’ addressed topics related to education and skills, job creation, community wellbeing, the youth surplus, equality and inclusivity. Subsequent thematic gatherings under the conference’s focus on ‘Planet’ explored biodiversity, waste, climate change, environment, crisis management and renewables; whilst the participants concerned with ‘Productivity’ partook in sessions on innovation, establishing a knowledge-based economy, competitiveness, and entrepreneurism.

The GSC Muscat Hub was established in 2012 and has 23 members who embody the ethos of the wider Global Shapers Community. As a diverse group of committed individuals working across a range of industries in the private and public sector, the team has worked on projects addressing climate change, youth empowerment, and gender equality to date, as well as championing entrepreneurship and civic action.

Throughout 2018 Bank Sohar has maintained a strong focus on local youth with the objective of empowering them as contributors to Oman’s continued development. To this end, the bank has sponsored many youth related initiatives such as awarding high performing students, sponsoring the Oman Ambassadors Award for students studying abroad, and further sponsoring Sablat Oman Media Award that promotes video production about Oman from enthusiastic young people across the country. The Bank has recently launched ‘Tomohi’; a unique one-year internship programme developing young Omani skill sets to boost their employability.