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The Savola Center for Empowering People with Disability is an integrated project to support this very important segment of the society by focusing on visual, hearing, and physical disabilities. The Savola Center, following a meticulously planned strategy aims at providing job opportunities for 500 People with disabilities during the next three years.

This new strategy came about following a full-year of extensive research and field studies conducted by the Savola Group and involved leading European and Saudi consultants while at the same time involved studying in-depth the disabilities market in the Kingdom. According to recent statistics, there are approximately 500,000 People with disabilities in the Kingdom of which 30% are in the Western Province.

To become a pioneer in the field of social responsibility while focusing on people with disabilities to enable them to develop themselves and become efficient and skilled in order to positively contribute to the development of the communities they live in.

Train and employ people with disabilities and assist them in securing appropriate jobs that match their skills and enable them to become productive, confident, and proud individuals in themselves and influencers in the communities they live in.

The announcement of Savola's new CSR strategy is part of its "Savola Bridges" initiative, was launched a year ago in order to develop and execute a series of programs that help achieve sustainable development both socially, economically, medically, and environmentally. From that standpoint, the Group set up a dedicated office to employ people with disabilities in cooperation with the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and in cooperation with Ebsar Foundation and with the support of the Jeddah Institute of Speech and Hearing (JISH) by assessing speech and language skills and financing special programs in language therapy for a full year. The Group also funded special educational programs in cooperation with King Abdulaziz University Female Department to train recent graduates and prepare them for the job market.

Preparing to launch such a program, the Group benefited from similar European experiences by organizing special meetings, briefings, and visits that lasted a full year in order to gain the necessary experience and expertise. The Group also hosted international consultants in its headquarters in Jeddah where these visits included special visits to key relevant Government agencies such as the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), and other partner organizations such as Ebsar Foundation, JISH, in addition to meetings with key senior executives from the Group. Savola hosted Mr. Leo Kooyman, a senior consultant at Cedris and a specialist in employment of People with disabilities. Cedris, a Dutch organization that supports training, rehabilitation, and employment of People with disabilities has more than 100,000 members in Europe. Other consultants included leading consultant Nikos Avlonas, Founder and MD of CSE, a leading global CSR program developer in the world, who visited the Savola Group for a second time.

Savola takes a keen interest in the development of CSR programs and its Savola Bridges program is a living proof that reflects the Group's national commitment. Savola has launched long-term programs that involved education, social development, and training where the Group puts its administrative and HR experience in developing key sustainable programs. These programs are also both innovative and effective and are built on self assistance by giving people who are less fortunate with the opportunities to achieve self confidence and self satisfaction.

In recognition of Savola's efforts, the Group was awarded two key awards: the CSR Award for Saudi public companies presented by the International Institute for Research (IIR) to Saudi companies that are socially responsible and in 2008 the Group won Best CSR Practices in CSR amongst all companies in the Middle East.

The Group is planning to launch its pilot program for the Savola Center for People with Disabilities based on its new strategy in the next few months.