Giving Youth the Skills for a Better Future

Millions of young people across the MENA region have limited access to employment opportunities, and they find themselves unable to become economically active in their communities. Starbucks’ ‘Opportunity Café’ initiative has been designed to provide aspiring youth the training they seek, to realize their professional dreams.

‘Opportunity Café’ is part of Starbucks Global Month of Service which is carried out worldwide each year during the month of April to support the community where we operate. For the second year in a row, Starbucks forms the largest partnership in the Middle East and North Africa region with Bayt.com, the Middle East’s #1 Job Site, and Education for Employment (EFE) to support youth in landing their dream job through a professional CV writing workshop in Saudi Arabia.

A youth survey conducted as part of the 2016 Opportunity Café revealed that young people consider “poor CV writing skills” as a primary obstacle in their pathway to employment. In 2016, Starbucks launched the largest CV writing workshop in the MENA region in collaboration with Bayt.com and EFE reaching nearly 1,000 youth customers across the region.

This year, Starbucks takes ‘Opportunity Café’ a step further by organizing a coalition of experts with Bayt.com, EFE, Silatech and AMIDEAST to provide a wide range of professional advice for youth on the subjects of entrepreneurship and employment. The scale of this initiative spreads across 10 countries impacting youth across the MENA region.

In Saudi Arabia, Starbucks’ collaborates with Bayt.com in organizing the workshop on CV writing, offering strategic advice from career experts, and supporting youth to improve their CVs and interview skills as they seek employment opportunities. The workshop will take place on April 24 and will be organized simultaneously across 6 Starbucks stores.

Commenting on the occasion, Rana Shaheen, Regional Communications and CSR Manager for Starbucks MENA, said, “At Starbucks, we continue to support youth across the region to find opportunities and inspire them to reach their maximum potential. This year we have partnered with the experts in employment and entrepreneurship to form the largest coalition, giving local youth the opportunity to pick up valuable insights over a cup of Starbucks coffee and setting them on the path to success. We are proud to continue supporting our youth in the region with the necessary career guidance they seek.”
 

“We are thrilled to be reviving our partnership with Starbucks in order support more and more job seekers,” said Rania Nseir, Director of Business Development & CSR, Bayt.com. “As the Middle East’s #1 Job Site, we have made it our mission to equip job seekers with the skills and tools they need to build their careers of choice and head towards success. We hope that, by offering free CV consultations to professionals of all backgrounds and career levels, we will contribute towards a stronger and more empowered workforce. Those attending Opportunity Café will benefit from our career experts’ recommendations and will be able to better highlight their expertise in key areas and chalk out a well-structured CV. All job seekers can also benefit from our job site, which gives them access to over 10,000 jobs on any given day.”

In 2011, Starbucks declared April as its Global Month of Service, creating the opportunity for Starbucks partners (employees) and customers to connect and volunteer in the community they serve. Since 2013, Starbucks MENA has contributed over 20,000 service hours to its local communities and brought together over 3,000 volunteers in 34 city-wide projects across 10 markets in the MENA region.