EPA chief hails youth's interest in environmental issues
KUWAIT: Various vital issues including education, environment and health were discussed and presented the third annual Kuwait's Achievers for Future Opportunities (KAFO) forum held on Wednesday at Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Center. The event included various sessions on volunteering, sports, entrepreneurship, science and technology, media, arts and culture. Video presentation of previous achievements and projects was presented during the opening ceremony.
Work on KAFO, an initiative by the Amiri Diwan, started in 2015, and the first version of KAFO's website was launched in 2017. KAFO aims to create tools and channels to showcase young achievers and enable collaborative opportunities including knowledge transfer that leads to national development.
"KAFO is one of the Kuwait Youth Program (Kuwait Listens) projects launched in 2013 as a recommendation to launch a platform for Kuwaiti achievers. We studied the needs of the society and the way of connecting achievers. Participants can build their CVs on the website and show the possible ways of cooperation, in addition to searching for achievers according to their specialization," Executive Manager of KAFO Fatemah Al-Mosawi told Kuwait Times.
"This fair is just a part of our activities that present the achievements of participants. We have nine ideas that we would like the public to know and participate in achieving them," she pointed out. KAFO has been hugely successful, and participants are increasing every year. "Over 500 participants attended today to participate in this event. Our platform includes over 3,000 achievers, and this number is increasing every year," concluded Mosawi.
Chairman and General Director of the Environment Public Authority Sheikh Abdullah Al-Sabah attended the event and praised the high interest of the achievers in environmental issues. "Various environmental initiatives were presented today, but we aim to have more. The previous environmental initiatives were great, although they were presented by young people. The young achievers can also participate in improving the environmental situation in Kuwait through social media or drones that take pictures of the vegetation," he noted.
"We also cooperate with KAFO in taking samples of the waste in the sea or emissions produced by factories causing air pollution. Today, the young achievers move actively and this supports our efforts at EPA," stressed Sheikh Abdullah.
By Nawara Fattahova