One of its latest initiatives within its efforts to encourage Saudi youth and women and help them uncover work opportunities, the National Commercial Bank issued a handbook under the title “Local Products by National Hands” which showcases the products and projects of a number of female graduates from AlAhli small projects and productive families programs in 10 different cities around the Kingdom. The handbook contains pictures and descriptions of some of the most successful products with contact details of their producers in order to create a link for potential buyers or other interested prospects to get in touch with the producers. The handbook was distributed in various women events, conferences and exhibitions in addition to a number the bank's branches. Eng. Mahmoud Al-Turkistani, vice president and head of the Social Responsibility Department at NCB, said “this handbook aim to help promote the products of the women who had been trained by the bank on skills of starting businesses and working from home”. He commended the quality of the products and the entrepreneurial spirit of the graduates and affirmed that helping the graduates in marketing their products is considered part of the bank's commitment toward empowering the Saudi youth and the productive families and supporting them in growing their businesses. Some 9,000 copies of the handbook were distributed as an attachment with a local newspaper covering a wider area and reaching larger masses of people around the Kingdom. An electronic version of the handbook was published on the internal and external websites of the bank as well. Furthermore, NCB is currently planning to expand the distribution channels for the handbook through more exhibitions and conferences that the bank will participate in besides covering more of the bank's branch network around the Kingdom in order to enhance the reach of the marketing campaign and thus help improve the chances of productive families to succeed and develop their businesses. The number of trainees in AlAhli “productive families” program has reached 2726 women from around the Kingdom since the inception of the program in 2006 until mid-year 2009; while the total number of apprentices in the “small projects” program has reached 1930 during the same period.
