Health and social

We’re committed to improving the health and wellbeing of Saudi Arabia’s vulnerable citizens.  We built and funded the Abdul Latif Jameel Hospital, the first non-profit rehabilitation hospital in Saudi Arabia, providing comprehensive rehabilitation and care for adults and children.  The hospital is equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and provides advanced medical rehabilitation programmes.  Since opening, it has rehabilitated more than 60,000 patients.

Other targeted initiatives include creating Al Nada Centre to provide social and medical care for the elderly; co-founding the King Salman Disability Research Center motivational support for orphans through the Tanweer programmes; the world’s tallest flagpole in Jeddah; and family days for prisoners to facilitate their rehabilitation on release.

Arts and culture

Through our dedicated arts and culture programme, Art Jameel, we aim to foster a thriving art scene in the region, not only to promote contemporary art but to support creative entrepreneurs in growing their businesses.  We achieve this by creating strong partnerships with art organisations around the world that provide a regional platform for contemporary art.

We showcase contemporary art to global audiences, from the breath-taking Jameel Gallery for Islamic Art at London’s V&A Museum, to the Jeddah Sculpture Museum featuring the work of Henry Moore, Joan Miro, Alexander Calder, and Rabia Al-Akhras. We also recognise contributions to arts and culture through our bi-annual Jameel Prize, the Art Jameel Photography Award, and our art education programme.

Job creation

Since its inception in 2003, our dedicated job creation programme, Bab Rizq Jameel, has helped promising young men and women throughout the Arab world to find brighter futures and advance their potential.  To date, it has helped to create more than 720,000 jobs in a wide variety of industries across Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey.  Of this figure, some 490,000 jobs were created in Saudi Arabia alone, with 70% of these dedicated to female Saudi nationals.

In addition to sourcing job opportunities, Bab Rizq Jameel also provides training, careers counseling, and practical support such as CV writing and interview techniques to close the gap between university education and private sector requirements.  Alongside this, the programme provides micro-finance to encourage young people to start their own small business and launch their careers.

These achievements led to Bab Rizq Jameel receiving the prestigious Arab Social Media Influencers Award in recognition of the organisation’s success in generating job opportunities through its social media platforms.

In late 2014, Bab Rizq Jameel launched a new operation, BRJ International, headquartered in Dubai.  BRJ International will complement the efforts of the Bab Rizq Jameel organisation as well as seek to attract highly skilled and experienced professionals into the MENAT region.

Education and training

Through Education Jameel, we champion education for people of all ages to empower them to lead better lives and create a better world.  We create sustainable personal and professional development and promote global awareness of the emerging talent in the Arab world.

In 2009, to smooth the transition from education to occupation, we supported the establishment of INJAZ Saudi in partnership with the National Commercial Bank and Savola Group. Over the following two years, the programme grew into an independent and sustainable entity aiming to create employable Saudi youth for the country’s labour market.

Through the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Toyota Endowed Scholarship, over 100 scholarships have been granted to MIT graduates since 1994.  The programme was created to make studying at the visionary Massachusetts Institute of Technology a reality for selected scholars from Middle Eastern and Asian countries.  Students are hand-picked based on their ability, dedication, and potential and supported through their studies to achieve their professional goals.  To date Jameel/Toyota graduates have pursued careers in architecture, economics, electrical engineering, math, chemistry, physics and aviation sciences.

For budding entrepreneurs, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan Arab Region provides a platform for networking, knowledge sharing, and mentorship.  Abdul Latif Jameel encourages success by organizing the annual MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Start-up Competition which targets 21 countries in the region and attracts more than 5,000 applications every year.

Our award-winning traveling block-buster exhibition and educational program, 1001 Inventions, is an international science and cultural heritage initiative reaching 120 million people around the world.  1001 Inventions uncovers a thousand years of scientific and cultural achievements from Arab-speaking civilizations and how those contributions helped shape our modern world.

Global poverty alleviation

Founded at MIT in 2003, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global network of over 130 affiliated professors who use the power of scientific evidence to understand what really helps the poor. Evidence generated by J-PAL has led to the scale-up of proven programmes – from more effective distribution of subsidised rice in Indonesia to school-based deworming and chlorine dispensers for safe water in Africa and India.

Through its headquarters at MIT and independent regional offices in Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia and Southeast Asia, J-PAL partners with governments, NGOs, and international development organisations to find lasting solutions to poverty.
Its work has already had a direct effect on 203 million people.

In addition, D-Lab, also at MIT, is building a global network of innovators to design and disseminate technologies that can meaningfully improve the lives of people living in poverty.
D-Lab Scale-Ups was created in 2011, with support from Community Jameel to identify and scale technology solutions with potential for wide scale poverty alleviation. To date, Scale-Ups-assisted enterprises have created 248 fulltime jobs in developing countries and have indirectly employed an additional 400.