YouTube video stressing love for expats achieves 700,000 views

JEDDAH: A video clip on YouTube talking about benevolence toward foreign workers in the Kingdom has achieved nearly 700,000 views since its release about a month ago.
The Labor Ministry’s undersecretary for special programs, Abdel Moneim Al-Shehri, said the YouTube video “Have mercy on yourself," about kindness toward workers, enhanced the vision of the ministry in urging employers in particular and society in general to treat workers humanely and ask them regularly about their well-being and that of their families back home.
The clip was produced with an innovative idea highlighting values and morals. Compassion for laborers was the central idea.
Al-Shehri said in his speech: "The vision of the ministry in charity stems from the teachings of our religion, upon which the labor law in the Kingdom is based."
He urged social organizations to exert more efforts in training young men and women to be ambassadors of the Kingdom. They should be taught the importance of benevolence toward workers so they return home with good memories of the country of the Two Holy Mosques and of Saudis’ positive attitude.
The official emphasized that kindness toward expatriate workers in the Kingdom is based on the principle of "rights, not sympathy."
The video clip hosted a number of famous figures from the new media — Ibrahim Saleh, Adel Radwan, Saleh Abu Umra and Ibrahim Al-Bkairi, who spoke extempore. To surprise them in the studio, they were not briefed as to who they would share their day with.
The YouTube awareness campaign came at a time when social networking sites circulated a number of individual cases of abuse toward expat workers that occurred in some parts of the Kingdom.
The organizers followed the Hadith — "I was sent to complete the best of morals." The clip’s message was: Strengthen good values and demonstrate virtues of morality.