Qatar Railways Company (Qatar Rail), in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, has hosted a conference announcing the launch of its awareness programme dedicated to foreign employees and labour working on Qatar Rail projects.
Aiming to help people integrate into Qatari society and make expatriates’ move from home countries less challenging, Qatar Rail’s programme serves to brief foreigners on the country’s customs and laws and give them an overview of their personal contribution to maintaining security and stability and preventing legal offences, according to a statement.
The two-day conference in Doha introduced the Qatar Community Policing arm as well as the customs and traditions of the Qatari community. Attendees had the opportunity to know more about traffic safety programmes, drug and alcohol control as well as Internet law and cybercrimes.
Hamad Ibrahim al-Bishri, deputy CEO of Qatar Rail, inaugurated the “Security Awareness & Traffic Safety Forum for Foreign Workers at Qatar Rail”, extending gratitude to the MoI for the fruitful co-operation through both the Community Policing and Public Relations arms, in the presence of Colonel Abdullah Khalifa al-Muftah, director of Public Relations at the MoI; Lieutenant Colonel Sultan Mohamed al-Kaabi, assistant director of the Community Policing Department; Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Radi al-Hajri, director of the Traffic Awareness Department; and Captain Hadi Mohamed al-Hajri, director of the Security Media Department.
Speaking on the occasion, al-Bishri said: “Through these awareness programmes, we aim to better integrate our foreign employees into the Qatari society, make their move to Qatar much easier and combine efforts to prevent the occurrence of any law-related offences that residents may not be aware of.”
Colonel al-Muftah noted that community partnership is one of the main tools on which the MoI relies to achieve security and spread awareness through close co-ordination with various institutions of the state.
Lauding the Qatar Rail initiative, he said: “A number of awareness campaigns and programmes are being provided by the ministry through conventional and advanced communication methods aiming to fully deliver its messages to the target audience.
“We have constant communication and co-ordination with all communities in Qatar and many educational projects to spread awareness and raise the level of safety among the people of those communities are well under way”.
The awareness sessions were led by experts representing various departments of the MoI. Officials also agreed to provide special sessions for Qatar Rail contractors in the coming period.
Among the speakers were Captain Rashid Mubarak al-Khayarin, Community Policing social support officer; Lieutenant Shaheen Rashid al-Atiq, Public Relations Directorate officer; Lieutenant Fahd Sherida al-Abdullah, traffic awareness officer at the General Directorate of Traffic; Lieutenant Mohamed Hamad al-Asiri, Anti-Drug Directorate officer; Lieutenant Moudawi Saeed al-Qahtani, officer of the Anti-Cybercrimes Centre – CID; Lieutenant Jassem Saleh al-Sulaiti, Information Systems Directorate officer; and Faisal al-Hadawi, co-ordinator of communication with expatriate communities in the Public Relations Directorate.
Hassan Ahmed al-Marwani, technical interface senior manager at Qatar Rail, indicated that the conference is the first step within an integrated awareness programme co-ordinated with the MoI’s Public Relations Department.
He said, “We are happy to announce that the (awareness) programme’s next step will be dedicated to the 18,000 foreign workers at Qatar Rail.
“We are planning, with the help of Qatar Rail’s contractors, to set a timeline for awareness programmes dedicated to workers at various sites of the company.”