Kuwait City, Kuwait, May 20, 2022: Brothers Jaber and Nawaf Al-Fadhli have stuck together through life. Both played football for Al Nasr Sport Club and both work at the Kuwait Ministry of Defence. They also decided together that they wanted to be volunteers at the 3rd Gulf Games.
“We are avid football fans. We both played for Al Nasr, and I even went on to represent the Kuwait national team. When we heard that the Gulf Games would be held in Kuwait, we wanted to be a part of it as volunteers,” says the more outspoken of the siblings, Jaber.
“You will not believe it, but before this, we both had never watched an international swimming meet. Luckily, as volunteers, we got the opportunity and it has been great, especially with Kuwait winning so many medals,” Jaber added.
Jaber and Nawaf have manned the VIP section at the Sheikh Nasser Al Mohammed Aquatics Complex for the past four days. With the swimming programme drawing to an end, they have collected a lifetime of memories.
“It is great to see athletes in other sports perform at a high level.
In the past our world was only football. These Games have given us another aspect of sports,” said Jaber speaking in Arabic as Mosua Bu Shehri, the venue manager at swimming, acting as translator.
There are more than 500 volunteers at these Games, of which around 150 are women. Young and old have joined hands to welcome the athletes and officials. While there are a number of 16-year-old teenagers among the band of volunteers, the oldest is a professor from Kuwait University, 70-year-old Professor Mubarak Ratha, an avid sports fan.
“Professor Ratha teaches sports at Kuwait University, so I guess this is a bonus for him,” revealed Captain Ali Al-Marri, the Head of Volunteers, who is also the assistant Secretary General and a board member of the Kuwait Olympic Committee.
The 3rd GCC Games volunteer programme got underway in September, 2021, when the KOC announced it was looking for volunteers. They were inundated with applicants from the three sectors they were hoping to tap, namely the public and two government departments, the General Department of Civil Defence and the Youth Authority.
With women being included for the first time in the Gulf Games, extra emphasis had to be placed on the female athletes participating in the six sports with women athletes.
“We have mainly female volunteers at all the sports involving women so that everyone feels comfortable,” Al-Marri said. “Everything has gone off smoothly so far. I’m very pleased with the way things have worked out.”