Saudi Gazette Tabuk is well known for its cultivation of beautiful flowers. And, flowers from the city are exported all over the Kingdom for various occasions, however prior to it they undergo a process. So for doing it, who could be better handling those beauties than women themselves? Twenty one Saudi women are currently engaged at Astra Agricultural Company in Tabuk to cut, wrap, and preserve fresh flowers. The women's supervisor, Lateefa Awaji, has been working at the company for six years and is paid a salary of SR 2100 a month. “The women who apply for jobs must initially receive professional training for three months. Afterwards, she is eligible for a monthly salary of SR1500. Women are attracted to the jobs at Astra due to the shorter working hours, a steady income, and the most important of all transportation facility. The company provides us with transportation because the flower green houses are too far from the residential areas in Tabuk, almost about 40 kilometers,” said Awaji. “The first batch of female employees we had six years ago complained of resistance and disapproval from their family members. However, today much has changed. Now there is a long list of women seeking jobs in the flower production department and also in the fruits and vegetables department,” said the director of flower production at Astra, Eng. Yousef Abu Fara. He further added, “The idea to employ female workers came about as part of our company's project to contribute to the development of the society and opening up job opportunities for women in the industry. This initiative was strongly supported by Prince Fahd Bin Sultan, Governor of Tabuk region. Our green houses with a regulated internal environment have expanded and reached a total surface area of 240 square meters.” The women work from eight o'clock in the morning till at twelve noon. Their working hours are over at the call for Dhur prayer, they pray in a private prayer hall and are then served lunch by the company. The women who work at picking and packaging flowers enjoy several benefits, such as medical insurance, free means of transportation, a day off per week, and twenty-two days for their end of year vacation. Depending on how many years of experience the women have, their salaries range between SR1,500 and SR2,100 a month. According to Awaji, the female employees prepare a total of 4500 flowers each day to be transported to different regions of the Kingdom. They first pick and bring in the flowers, categorize them based on type and color, then they cut them to a suitable height and thorns are carefully removed from the roses. In the end flowers are wrapped to keep them fresh and undamaged during delivery. Fatima Al-Shehri is a Saudi mother of three children and she has been working in the commercial flower packaging department at Astra for five years. She earns SR 1,850 a month and she said, “I consider my coworkers my friends and among them, six are university graduates who hold a Bachelor's Degree in Arabic language, or Islamic education, or business administration. Although our educational backgrounds may be different, we all work hard, take our job seriously, and respect one another.” A young Saudi woman, Jamila Al-Salami, works at Astra during the day and studies Islamic education through distance learning at the University of Tabuk. “I will be graduating at the end of this year. The company has been very supportive and they give me the day off whenever I have to go to the university to take exams. All thanks to Allah, I have had no problems in balancing my studies with work,” said Al-Salami. __
