Enterprising Saudi kids are "rolling" in it with lucrative skating street jobs

Many Saudi roller skaters are using their favorite pastime to make money. 

Advertising companies are employing these youths to distribute brochures among motorists on the Kingdom's streets as an effective way of reaching consumers.

Nayef Bahshaiman, a secondary school student, said distributing brochures on roller skates was met with approval from the public.

The practice gives young Saudis an opportunity to usefully utilize their spare time and many of them make up to SR100 (USD 28) a day.

Bahshaiman said he was hired more than a year ago and he spent around three hours a day distributing brochures while roller skating.

Abdulghani Khojah said this was his first year in the job and it provided him with a good income that exceeded SR3,000  (USD 800) a month.

Khojah does not work for any particular company. Instead, he distributes brochures of different agencies on a freelance basis.

"It is not a job by itself, but it provides an additional source of income and allows young Saudis to utilize their free time to their benefit," he said.

He hopes that concerned government bodies would regularize their work. Khojah said he worked from late afternoon to early evening at crowded locations defined by companies. He said he and his friends try to entertain the public with roller-skating moves while distributing brochures.

Shafei Al-Naqr said he had been doing this job for four years. He said he worked during school vacations and made up to SR4,000 (USD 1066) a month in some seasons.

"An increasing number of advertising companies are relying on youngsters to reach consumers. They have realized that these youths have a lot of energy that they can harness to their advantage," he said.