OmanPride: Zahrah Al-Aofi gets 2017 Sultan Qaboos Award for Volunteer Works

More sports Monday 11/December/2017 18:41 PM
By: Times News Service
OmanPride: Zahrah Al-Aofi gets 2017 Sultan Qaboos Award for Volunteer Works

Zahrah Al-Aofi, who has won the Sultan Qaboos Award for Volunteer Works 2017, has been an avid teacher to children and old people for the past 10 years. After volunteering for children in humble places at Wilayat Al-Hamra, Zahrah became a model mother and teacher in Oman.
Zahrah has her own insight into the private initiative to shape and improve the quality of teaching of the Holy Quran, and reading for children and old people as well.
“I enjoy the work I do,” she said. “It is important for me to have a voice in the society to encourage old women and children to learn and improve their reading skills,” she noted.
Zahrah aimed to teach her students about charity and good deeds, such as sacrificing for others. “Ten years ago, I started by teaching 20 students. Now, I have 100 students who are taking classes in my house.”
“Students are taking classes for three hours a day. The class starts at 9am and finishes at 12pm,” she revealed. “I have hired qualified staff to teach children about religion, Quran sciences and other important things in life.”
To encourage students and increase their desire to study more, Zahrah started cooking meals and sold them in Al-Hamrah. She was the only woman to cook food and sell it in Al-Hamrah. All the women were embarrassed to cook and earn money. “After I did it and earned OMR1,500 in a year, all of them got inspired and found a new source of income for their families,” she stressed.
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Before she became a paid volunteer by doing extra work, Zahrah improved her private classes by buying new materials for students. “I bought books, printed and electronic Holy Quran, pens, pencils and other materials,” she added. She then became a volunteer before going to the governmental school at the Makhtaf Village in 2009. Now, a project worker based at Al-Hamrah, Zahrah is involved in helping to raise awareness on the role people should play as part of their social responsibility.
She invited a teacher, Huda Al-Qasabi, everyday to participate in the Sultan Qaboos Award for Volunteer Work Initiative, where she shared her experience.
Asked what she enjoyed most about her job, Zahrah remarked it was meeting people. “I enjoy teaching children how to hold and write with a pencil. That is what is important to me, really. All the work I have done in the past 10 years has been about that and having fun.”
Her contribution to local volunteers has already been recognised this year, when she was awarded. She hadn’t previously appeared for this competition, though. “It is my first new framework in social care. It is an opportunity for me to contact people from across the Sultanate,” she observed.
Zahrah, who still regards her accomplishments with disbelief, underlined that she had opened 12 schools for old and young people in the mountainous and remote areas of Al-Hamrah.
“I followed my students to their schools. All the teachers informed me that they are excellent,” she remarked. “I was ranked first, and I feel happy. This was a real challenge, and now, I got the result,” she said.
In the future, she hopes to continue working in a job she enjoys, and getting her message across to students and old people that they should have a voice in the community. She advices volunteers to respect what they have in society. She also stressed the importance of searching for real issues and trying to fix them.