Qatar Rail Launches Awareness Programmes

Qatar Railways Company (Qatar Rail), in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, and in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, hosted a conference announcing the launch of its awareness programme dedicated to foreign employees and labourers working on Qatar Rail projects.
Aiming to help people integrate well into Qatar and make the expat move from home countries less challenging, Qatar Rail’s programme serves to brief foreigners on Qatari customs and laws, and give them an overview on their personal contribution to maintaining security and stability, and preventing legal offenses.

The two-day conference held at La Cigale Hotel in Doha, introduced the Qatar Community Policing arm as well as the customs and traditions of the Qatari community. Attendees, undertaking a new career journey in Qatar, had the chance to know more about traffic safety programmes, drug and alcohol control, as well as internet law and cybercrimes, which have become more common with the heavy reliance on e-commerce and the use of the local Metrash service.

Eng. 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 Ministry of Interior for the fruitful cooperation through both Community Policing and Public Relations arms, in the presence of Colonel Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Interior, Lieutenant Colonel Sultan Mohamed Al Kaabi, Assistant Director of Community Policing Department, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Radi Al-Hajri, Director of Traffic Awareness Department, and Captain Hadi Mohammed Al-Hajri, Director of the Security Media Department.

Speaking at the occasion, Eng. 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 offenses that residents may not be aware of. We chose this period preceding the holy month of Ramadan to launch the awareness programmes to help in respecting the customs and traditions of the Qatari society, share insight on the implications of drug and alcohol consumption, and present an overview on traffic law programmes and cybercrimes detection”.

From his part, Colonel Abdullah Khalifa Al Muftah, Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Interior noted that community partnership is one of the main tools on which the Ministry of Interior relies to achieve security and spread awareness through the close coordination with various institutions of the state.
He said: “The Ministry of Interior is only able to achieve its goals in maintaining security and safety of the community and protecting people’s lives and properties with the solid cooperation with the various institutions and society members. The Ministry considers awareness in different security fields an important tool to maintain social safety. 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”.

Colonel Al Muftah said that maintaining safety of community members is a top priority, highlighting the efforts being made to raise awareness on safety measures among workers of companies operating in Qatar. Praising the Qatar Rail initiative towards its foreign employees and workers, Colonel Al Muftah also noted that Qatar Rail and the companies working on the railway projects get full attention of the Public Relations Department.

He concluded: We have constant communication and coordination 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 underway”.

The awareness sessions were led by experts representing various departments of the Ministry of Interior, where officials also agreed upon 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 Mohammed Hamad Al Asiri, Anti-Drug Directorate Officer, Lieutenant Moudawi Saeed Al Qahtani, Officer of Anti-Cybercrimes Centre – CID, Lieutenant Jassem Saleh Al Sulaiti, Information Systems Directorate Officer, and Mr Faisal Al Hadawi, Coordinator of communication with expat communities at Public Relations Directorate.

In the same context, Eng. Hassan Ahmed Al Marwani, Technical Interface Senior Manager at Qatar Rail, indicated that this conference is the first step within an integrated Awareness Program coordinated with the Department of Public Relations at the Ministry of Interior.

He said: “I would like to start by thanking the two Departments of Public Relations and Community Policing at the Ministry of Interior for the close cooperation and the remarkable support given to our Awareness Programmes. We are happy to announce that the programme’s next step will be dedicated to the 18,000 foreign workers at Qatar Rail. This is an indication of the company’s interest in these members of our team who are working hard to implement the rail projects.”

Al Marwani confirmed that the Qatar Rail initiative comes in line with the State of Qatar’s attention to the workers’ rights and their need to a safe, and secure work environment in the State of Qatar.

“We are planning with the help of Qatar Rail’s contractors to set a timeline for awareness programmes dedicated to workers in the various sites of the company. We have already coordinated with the Community Policing Department to make these programmes accessible in different languages for the many nationalities of our workers. In addition, the awareness sessions were categorised according to the employees’ nature of work,” Al Marwani continued.