UAE plans to launch tolerance award

Dubai Dubai plans to launch a tolerance award and teach the values of tolerance in schools, it was announced on Sunday.

The announcements came during a press conference in Dubai revealing details of the second Word Tolerance Summit (WTS), to be held on Wednesday and Thursday at Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai.

The tolerance award would be given by Dubai-based International Institute for Tolerance (IIT), which organises the summit. The first winner of the award is expected to be announced in 2020 and the award would be held under patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

A detailed announcement regarding the award is expected at a later stage.

Proposed curriculum

The press conference also heard that UAE schools could include tolerance as a subject following recommendations from the summit’s previous edition.

WTS is an IIT initiative under the wider Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Initiatives. The second edition will be chaired by Minister of Tolerance Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, who is IIT’s chairman of the board of trustees.

The two-day summit, themed ‘Tolerance in Multiculturalism: Achieving the Social, Economic and Humane Benefits of a Tolerant World’, will be held under the patronage of Shaikh Mohammad.

On Sunday, the summit’s organising committee disclosed details of the upcoming event during a press conference at Jumeirah Mina A’Salam Hotel in Dubai.

This year’s summit attendees will include Rustem Menekhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; Mara Cristina Gabrielli, Federal Senator of Brazil; Dr Lucy Janet Bermudez, President of the State Council of Colombia; other dignitaries, senior UAE officials, specialists, influencers, and local universities.

At the press conference, Dr Ahmad Bin Shaikh Ahmad Al Shaibani, IIT’s managing director and WTS’s chairman of higher organising committee, said the UAE society is based on tolerance, following the example of its founding father, the late Shaikh Zayed Sib Sultan Al Nahyan.

“Tolerance is our duty, and the duty of the whole of society, to forgive the sinner and help him return to the right path. Allah, the Almighty, is forgiving, so can we not forgive?” Dr Al Shaibani said.

He added that the summit will include sessions, workshops, a government exhibition on tolerance, student projects for tolerance, specialised councils, digital library, an art and photography exhibition, and a tolerance video.

Details of the summit are available on www.worldtolerancesummit.com