Poetry, calligraphy and mental maths: Mohammed bin Rashid Library’s events engage 500 visitors in Dubai

Dubai: Mohammed bin Rashid Library (MBRL) organised throughout the month of August a series of recreational and educational events that saw participation of around 500 students and visitors from all backgrounds.

Emirati Women’s Day

In celebration of the Emirati Women’s Day, MBRL hosted the ‘Spirit of the Place’ event with the participation of Emirati poet, artist, and film director Nujoom Al Ghanem, and Emirati lawyer Nadia Abdul Rasaq, a distinguished private sector figure who founded her own company. The event kicked off with a panel discussion moderated by Emirati journalist Alia Bujsaim.

During the session, Al Ghanem highlighted her experience in the world of art and cinema, her success on the global stage, and the most prominent challenges she has faced in this field. She also touched on her successful endeavours to break the stereotypes of women in Emirati society.

Emirati lawyer Nadia Abdul Rasaq shared her experience in the UAE courts, taking on a position previously reserved to men, facing all the challenges of this profession at the time, and ultimately succeeding in establishing her own company.

Poetry and music

Among other events, MBRL organised a poetry reading event under the title ‘Poetry Hour’, with the participation of a select group of Emirati poets. To the sound of oud melodies, participants recited a collection of poems that varied between descriptive, love, praise, pride, emotional revelation poetry, among others.

With poems ranging between Nabati poetry and Rap, the event saw the participation of several Emirati poets, including Dr Talal Al Junaibi; Abdullah Al Hediya Al Shehhi; Sheikha Al Mutairi; Dr Aisha Al Shamsi, and Amal Al Sahlawi.

Moreover, MBRL hosted the ‘Nagham wa Kalimat’ (Melodies & Lyrics) musical soiree, during which the Nagham Ensemble band played a collection of Arabic songs and compositions, while the Jolly Trio band played some tracks for world-class musicians amidst significant interaction from library visitors.

Writing workshops

In addition, the library organised the ‘Story Writing’ workshop for youth, which focused on explaining the fundamentals of story writing under the supervision of writer Fatima Al Mazrouei. The event also provided an introduction to story, its types, its origin as a literary genre, and the basic elements that make up a story such as conflict, setting (time and place), character, theme and plot. On day two, the workshop explained means of building a story and allowed for some practical application, during which trainees took their first steps into the world of story writing.

Over the course of a two-day Arabic Calligraphy workshop, Emirati calligrapher Fatima Jouri gave an overview of the basic fonts and their many types in our Arabic language. She also taught the trainees how to make the Kufic script template using some engineering tools.

Back to school

On the occasion of returning to schools, MBRL organised two workshops, the first of which covered the rapid mental calculation theme, which was chosen in view of its importance in enhancing the ability to solve mathematical problems mentally by understanding counting theories. The second workshop focused on teaching robotics, building and programming LEGO robots, through some competitive tasks among the trainees using visual programming blocks.

The library also hosted the first of its kind Visitor Talents event, which attracted more than 30 creative talents of various nationalities in the fields of arts and music. The event included playing musical pieces on piano, oud, violin, and guitar; while the library allocated a corner for painting and arts, where the participating artists drew beautiful paintings that reflected their wonderful artistic taste.