Laura Bashraheel Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — In the absence of activities in the Kingdom, hobbyists are taking matters into their own hands by finding ways to express themselves and practice their hobbies. The popular video-sharing website YouTube has become one of the few outlets for Saudi youth to express themselves and a new series which focuses on success stories, is hoping to enhance creativity and guide young Saudis. “Ekhshif Nafsak” or “Expose Yourself”, is a new YouTube series that presents success stories in 10-minute interviews. Produced by a group of young Saudis, each episode starts with a sketch on negative perspectives youth encounter, followed by an interview. The first episode opens with a scene of the host complaining about the lack of activities in Saudi Arabia. The title of the first episode is “Initiative” and it tells the success story of Ameen Kaisran who was jobless for almost a year until he got a loan to start Stickershop - his own business in interior designing that combines Arabic calligraphy with nature. The series is the brainchild of Ahmed, Eyad and Anas Al-Sayed along with a few members of Hewaia, a business that invests in and develops young talent in the Kingdom. The series focuses on positivity in every success story it presents. Having only produced four episodes, the team has been lucky enough to get sponsored by Lomar Thobe whose owner Loay Naseem appeared as a success story in the third episode titled “Creativity.” Ahmed Al-Sayed, a 29-year-old employee and the co-founder of Hewaia and co-producer of the online series, said that Hewaia was established in 2009 by his younger brother Eyad who is a professional inline skater. He formed a group of young amateur and professional inline skaters to practice their hobby around the city and share their experiences. Meanwhile, another group of graffiti artists started a similar group and both groups were connected through their hobbies, sharing their experiences and hopes of being able to do what they love the most. “Until 2012, these groups were not completely organized; they didn't have enough equipment or places to practice their hobbies,” said Ahmed. When the hobbyists had trouble acquiring spray paint or professional rollerblades. Eyad then established a small company to provide the equipment they needed. The company recently opened its first store in Madinah and plans on opening another store in Jeddah soon. Instead of buying the equipment online, Hewaia acquired the franchise for Ironlak, the popular spray paint used by Graffiti artists and for professional rollerblades. “In Hewaia, we are holding events and training for hobbyists to help them be inventive. We had talks with the municipality to suggest ideas on graffiti and they were so supportive, we were surprised to find out that the municipality has set a wall for graffiti artists to draw on and at that time it was completely empty,” he added. “So far, there haven't been any female presence in the series, although there are many females who are so creative and successful, they refuse to appear in our videos,” said Ahmed. “We receive so many messages from people asking us to help them. There are many young people who are looking for support, not even financial, but to become more exposed and get support from society,” he added. Wijdan Jeyad, an Interior design student at the Science and Technology College in Jeddah and her brother Abdul Kareem started the “Aws” artists group this year with the support of their parents who are also artists. They come to know about Hewaia while searching for spray paint for their work. “Aws” began five years ago as a diverse group in all areas of visual art in all its fields such as coal, oil and acrylic painting, murals painting and graffiti. “We are lucky to find Hewaia as we always had problems with finding graffiti sprays. We participated in many events and now we are doing projects for companies in Jeddah,” said Jeyad.
