JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA | 30 November 2025 — The Jameel Arts & Health Lab, a global initiative to improve health and wellbeing through the arts, announced today its delivery of the Introduction to arts and health training programme at Hayy Jameel, a dedicated arts complex and creative hub developed by Art Jameel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The first of its kind in the country, the programme is led by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), and aims to support the development of a skilled workforce able to contribute to population health, community wellbeing and the creative industries, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
Saudi Arabia aims to generate 300,000 jobs in the creative industries over the next decade, and the training programme directly supports this national priority.
By providing certified professional development for emerging practitioners, it equips participants with the skills to integrate arts-based strategies across healthcare, cultural, community and educational settings, supporting a workforce capable of contributing to both population health and the creative economy.
The four-day course, developed with research aligned with the WHO, will run from 1–4 December 2025, with an opening reception on 30 November at Hayy Jameel.
Participants will gain insights into global arts-in-health practice, youth mental health, creative ageing and staff wellbeing in healthcare settings.
Dr Nisha Sajnani, co-director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab and professor and director of the arts and health initiative at the New York University Steinhardt school of culture, education and human development, said: “At a time of significant transformation in Saudi Arabia's cultural and healthcare sectors, we're equipping practitioners with evidence-based and culturally responsive skills to strengthen health systems and community resilience at scale.
"This training not only advances professional development but also contributes to emerging career pathways at the intersection of arts, health, and wellbeing.”
Nader Iskandar Diab, head of programmes at Community Jameel, said: “We are very pleased to support the Jameel Arts & Health Lab as they deliver the Kingdom’s first arts and health training.
"At Community Jameel, science-based approaches are at the core of our work and we are pleased to support this training in promoting the role the arts can play in enhancing health in Saudi Arabia.”
Yazid Anani, senior curator at Art Jameel, said: “At Hayy Jameel, our exhibitions, programmes, learning and research make space for a plethora of artistic voices that evoke present urgencies and future imaginaries into conversation, prompting real questions about continuity and change, preservation and rupture witnessed across the cultural landscape.
"Through this training, which extends beyond Art Jameel's own thinking and approach, we hope to equip creative minds and cultural practitioners to be more nuanced and sensitive in understanding the conditions that shape our sense of wellbeing but more so how wellbeing itself emerges from the social and cultural contexts we inhabit locally and regionally.”
The course marks a return to Saudi Arabia for the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, following its Healing Arts Arabia roundtable in 2023, hosted by the Ministry of Health, which explored the potential of arts-based approaches to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s evolving healthcare system.
The outcomes of that meeting helped lay the foundation for this professional training programme.