A time of difficult transition all round, young adulthood is perhaps the most awkward time that one should have to decide where to take their lives. In Qatar today, the youth have more options than ever. With the breadth of experience available, it can be difficult to find a path that keeps everyone happy – most importantly, young people themselves. However, there are many services emerging to help guide young people through the wealth of possibility at their fingertips.

Services

Qatar Foundation’s Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) is a great place to start for those not yet certain on their path, wanting to muck-in with their community or who’d like to strengthen their existing skills. Their programmes address local community development challenges and aim to instil a spirit of volunteerism and encourage wider involvement in community development. There’s also vast range of learning opportunities, such as international volunteer trips, Community Impact Days, literacy programs and Ramadan campaigns.

The Qatar Career Development Center holds regular events, which give advice, leads for experience and great networking opportunities. Each year it holds a Summer Camp, for those with little or no idea with what they’d like to do; it’s a great opportunity to share and learn about potential career opportunities.

Direction: Skills and Personality

These days, it’s likely that young people are gearing toward STEM subjects for the sake of employability, with many heading toward a career in business to fulfil their entrepreneurial pursuits. However, finding the path that suits particular skill-sets and personality traits will lead to the best possible result.

Try to break down personality traits, it should help find a career that matches the ‘soft-skill set’; this may include managing time and meeting deadlines; working well with other people; planning ahead to groups of people; joining in discussions, caring for other people; coming up with original ideas; listening to other people’s views. Understand yourself as you try out new possibilities. You should double down on strengths, rather than pushing too hard in an awkward direction.

Work Experience

Though family members may be able to provide valuable office work, real world, bottom-rung experience can be more effective in establishing character. These areas provide unskilled volunteering opportunities:

  • In Animal Welfare, The Cat Assistance Team, PAWS Rescue Qatar, Second Chance Rescue Qatar and Qatar Animal Welfare Society all help to curtail Doha’s constant stray crisis. They are in continual need of help; young people are bound to find work at one of these centres.
  • Cultural events are constantly on the look out for volunteers. The Aiyal Youth Film Festival and The Youth Company showcase and produce films and stage works, respectively. For book lover, Maktaba is a newly opened kids’ library ready for interns.
  • Those interested in the Environment should join one of Doha’s regular clean-up operations. These include the Doha Beach Clean Project. The Ministry of Municipality runs regular events, details of which can be found on their website.
  • In sports the Qatar Olympic Committee arranges more than 80 events per year, many of which need volunteers.

Lastly, this should be recognised as an exciting, prosperous time. The may not know what’s right for you, but the only way to find out is to try. The more you do, the more you’ll discover about yourself.

Alex Glendinning is a freelance writer with an BA in English and History from the University of Sussex. From P.R. to journalism his work has featured in The Gulf Times and Qatar Today. Read more at clippings.me/sympa and https://innerouterblog.wordpress.com/