Albee’a hiya alhaya
July 13, 2026
“Albee’a hiya alhaya”(Environment is Life). Society is a Saudi women-led organization, established in 2018 to serve Mecca, the capital city of Mecca Province, in the western area of Saudi Arabia. Its vision is to raise awareness about societal responsibility towards the environment in the Mecca region. Its mission is to achieve effective community participation, to protect the environment and conserve natural resources in the province. The Society implemented several environment-related programs to promote trash recycling, raise awareness among garbage collectors about best safety measures and reduce illness, and document harmful practices on the environment through art and photography. In 2020, the organization launched “God Is Beautiful, and He Loves Beauty”, an initiative that, in partnership with the government, municipal authorities, and volunteer teams, implemented monthly public cleanups of residential neighborhoods and streets and hosted recycling and waste management workshops. By the end of these programs, the Society raised awareness among 100,000 citizens in the city, reduced illnesses among 5,000 sanitation workers, and organized four cleanup drives with the participation of 20 volunteers in each event.
Albee’a hiya alhaya’s effectiveness stems from its program implementation model, its partnership-driven approach, and measurable community-level outcomes rather than high-level advocacy or policy work. As a grassroots, service-delivery organization, its strength lies in direct, hands-on programming: recurring cleanup drives, recycling workshops, and safety training for sanitation workers, all executed in coordination with Mecca’s municipal authorities and volunteer networks. This partnership structure with local government gives the Society legitimacy and operational reach that a purely independent advocacy group might lack in Saudi Arabia’s tightly regulated civil society environment, where formal cooperation with municipal bodies is often necessary to sustain and scale programming.
Its “God Is Beautiful, and He Loves Beauty” initiative demonstrates this effectiveness concretely: monthly cleanups sustained over time, workshops that build lasting waste-management knowledge among residents, and quantifiable results including awareness reached among 100,000 citizens and a documented reduction in illness among 5,000 sanitation workers. The focus on worker safety and health is a particularly notable dimension of effectiveness, since it addresses an occupational and environmental justice gap- the well-being of garbage collectors- that many broader climate or environmental organizations overlook. As a women-led organization operating within Mecca specifically, it also fills a localized niche, tailoring environmental messaging and mobilization to a religiously and culturally significant city with a large residential and pilgrim population. While its scale remains modest compared to national or international NGOs, its effectiveness lies in consistent, replicable, community-embedded action with tangible public health and civic engagement outcomes.
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Saudi Arabia Country Managers, Emgad Ellaboudy and Abeer Abdulkareem.