Seven leading energy companies launch Community Outreach Programme

The project aims to meet the educational, professional and developmental needs of the North communities by offering free courses to nationals of every age.

RLIC-COP was established by the seven leading energy companies operating in Ras Laffan Industrial City (Qatar Petroleum, Qatargas, RasGas, Qatar Shell, Dolphin Energy Limited, Oryx GTL, and Al Khaleej Gas) with the aim to create respectful and trustworthy partnerships between the energy industry and the community by offering long-term sustainable initiatives in the fields of education, culture, heritage and environment.

As part of the project launch, an open day was conducted on Tuesday at Compass International School where the community and potential students got together to meet with the RLIC-COP representatives and International House Doha, the course provider. A second open day was conducted on Wednesday for ladies. The pilot scheme of the programme, targeting nearly 70 Qatari males and females, will kick off the English language courses by the end of November.

The two open days, attended by more than 300 community representatives, were an occasion to get information about the courses, learn about the drivers behind the initiative, in addition to attending test classes. The three month course will start in November offering Beginner English classes (English Development Programme) for both male and female groups. The second phase of the programme, which is scheduled to start early 2013, aims to further develop the English programme by offering classes for Beginner to Intermediate levels, as well as IELTS and TOEFL test preparation courses. The final phase will see full implementation of the Skills Development Programme with a broad range of courses.

The Northern Community Skills Development Project supports the Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-16, which aims to build the knowledge and skills of the local populations so as to foster social development. The project is also aligned to the Qatar National Vision 2030, which recognises education as the key component of Qatar's path to sustainability and in particular its human development pillar as the "development of all people to enable them to sustain a prosperous society".