Dubai: Around 250 children from across the UAE gathered in a Dubai school on Saturday to take part in the UAE final of the Arab Reading Challenge.
Since November 2016, 317,000 children in all seven emirates have each been reading their way through dozens of books. Rules state that each school-aged participant must read at least 50 books, all of them in Arabic.
Each participant is then judged for their knowledge of the books they have read. From Saturday’s final, the judging panel will pick the best 10 readers to represent the UAE.
These candidates will then be up against their counterparts from 15 Arab countries. Finalists across the region will compete for ultimate honours at the grand finale to be hosted in Dubai in October 2017.
At the grand finale, the very best reader will take home a Dh550,000 prize.
Shortly after stepping out of the classroom-turned-judging room, 12-year-old Sara Salman smiled with relief.
“They asked me different questions about the books I read,” she said. Last year, the Jordanian schoolgirl, who lives in Dubai, took part in the first Arab Reading Challenge — but didn’t win.
This year, armed with knowledge on novels and books on Islam and science, she hopes to get further.
“I’ve put so much hard work into this. Even if I lost today, I’ve still made something, and I’ve got a lot of stuff that I’ve learnt.”
More readers than ever
The Arab Reading Challenge was first launched in September 2015 by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Organisers hope for the competition to spark a cultural renaissance in the Arab World.
The first edition saw 3.59 million students from 54 nationalities, representing 30,000 schools in 21 countries, which was more than triple the target of one million students.
At a ceremony held in October last year, a seven-year-old schoolboy from Algeria was announced the competition’s first champion.
The winner was awarded by Shaikh Mohammad in a sparkling ceremony held in Dubai.
Now in its second edition, this year’s Arab Reading Challenge has proved even more popular.
In the first four months of this year, more than six million students from 40,000 schools across the Arab World have taken part, supervised by 75,000 volunteers.
