The participants in the 18th Scientific Meeting for Hajj and Umrah Researches, which is currently being held at Umm Al-Qura University, proceeded their scientific discussions by holding the fourth session headed by Dr. Mohamed bin Ali Al-Eqla. It tackled “Accomplishments and Initiatives in Serving Pilgrims” الإنجازات والمبادرات في خدمة ضيوف الرحمن" theme. During the session, Dr. Khaled bin Awad Al-Sherief, the Affiliate Researcher from the Planning and Development Administration in the Police of Makkah, noted that the security and governmental entities shall put plans and strategies related to the Hajj affairs in Arafat holy area to achieve (No Hajj Without a Permit) slogan. He highlighted the importance of performing pilgrimage for the regular pilgrims and achieving the balance for the capability and capacity in Arafat and Muzdalifah holy areas, in addition to the fulfillment of the security bodies for their job as required.

He added that determining the filtration points helps the security and relevant entities in identifying the route of the walking pilgrims towards Arafat and designating the suitable force in such points. He highlighted that plans could be set by determining the filtration points on the road containment through finding many points to take regulatory procedures against the violating pilgrims who do not carry permits to perform pilgrimage.

Dr. Mohamed Abo Abat, the Researcher from the Civil Defense Directorate, pointed to the importance of focusing on the statistical indicators of the human services in the pilgrimage in preventing risks in the crowd gathering places in the Hajj season to eliminate disasters’ happening by making the best use of resources and directing the crowds towards achieving the objectives. Accordingly, the importance of benefiting from the statistical indicators in receiving the human aids emerged to achieve a quick and effective degree of response targeting the prevention of risks in crowd gathering by pre-readiness, which might reduce its impacts and damages, in addition to providing required support and aids for safe life in the holy areas.

He added that the efficiency and effectiveness of risk prevention depend on a number of main factors and principles, most importantly the prediction of potential risks; coordination of efforts between the security bodies and between these bodies and other relevant organizations;  putting policies and plans; and designing the systems that secure a strategic trend to prevent the risks of the crowd gathering and to manage them well. This is in addition to providing the early alert systems; developing the tools of analysis and risk prediction; organizing powers; achieving the integration between several activities; and providing information systems to work on supporting the efficiency and effectiveness of decision making.

He stressed on that preventing the risks of crowd gathering in Hajj requires mutual coordination and cooperation between the organizations concerned with crowd management, which makes it a collective responsibility with combined roles, expertise, efforts and different leaderships who are concerned with the emergency management.

Dr. Kahled bin Murshid Al-Otaibi, the Researchers from the Civil Defense Directorate in Madina, pointed to the importance of reducing the monitoring committees to one main committee, from which emerging a number of committees. It shall determine the duties of the monitoring committees clearly, increasing the coordination between the monitories parties on the pilgrims housing buildings, qualifying the members of the committees, and determining the visiting hours to the buildings.

He added that there is an advantage for the monitoring committees, as it represents the different relevant departments, and helps in the cooperation for implementing the resolutions and enhancing the works. He noted that a study showed that some of the committees’ members are unqualified and there are a lot of monitoring committees on the pilgrims housing buildings, in addition to the complaints of some investors from the overlapping of some of the committees’ works and the weak coordination in some monitoring work fields.

Dr. Mounira Hemdan Al-Asseimy, a Researcher from the Ministry of Health, called for supporting the mutual expertise and exchanging knowledge through different health professions, to provide outstanding medical aiding services to the pilgrims through facilitating the team work and building; encouraging the leading groups on problem solving; developing the coordination potentials between the several sectors; coordinating the monitoring and management ways; making outlines to collect, distribute and diversify data; and taking new initiatives that offer a lot of medical aiding services and lead to quick access and support.

She added that using the information technology and communication forms a challenge for who are related to pilgrimage geographically, despite long distance and limitations, and cultural differences. She noted that the lack of typical interaction and not seeking the best use of human power complicates the efforts that aspire to fix and diversify a lot of pilgrimage medical components, in addition to taking new initiatives that would offer many medical aiding services and lead to quick access and support.

Dr. Somiah Ezzat Aal Sharaf, the Scholar from Umm Al-Qura University, presented a training program to develop the guiding skills of the volunteers working in the Hajj and Umrah systems. She added that the National Transformation Program 2020 determined a number of strategic objectives that were allocated for the Ministry of  Hajj and Umrah, where they reached five objectives, including 15 indicators to measure the quality of performance of the services provided to the pilgrims, which enables them to perform their pilgrimage easily, in addition to enriching their religious trip and cultural experience.

she highlighted that one of the most prominent objectives is raising the awareness level of those who are working in the Hajj and Umrah systems. This is being determined by a numeral indicators for the beneficiaries from the training programs organized for the workers. The current study aimed at offering a training program for a group of volunteers who are working in the Hajj and Umrah systems, to develop their guiding skills. The study included 30 Saudi volunteers (16 females and 14 males) aged from 25 to 35 years old. They also had different voluntary participations with some of the Circumambulation Institutions.

The results reflected the positive effect of the program applied on this group of workers, which leads to enhancing the level of the guiding services providing by them. Dr. Sharaf then recommended organizing more training programs that work on enhancing the performance of the volunteers regarding the health, religious, guiding, technical and other practices, which would contribute to aiding the efforts exerted by the workers in the public and private sectors and support the services offered to the pilgrims in the Hajj and Umrah systems.