Dubai: Every student at a Dubai Horizon School donated at least one book from their personal home library, signed with a personal message to the Reading Nation campaign, on Thursday.
The school’s activities are a part of the open week taking place in schools across the country, to encourage children to donate books to less fortunate children in refugee camps, and over 2,000 schools around the world.
Thousands of books have poured in during the open week in schools across the country, said Tariq Al Gurg, CCO of Dubia Cares, with numbers expected to exceed the campaign’s target of five million books.
“We will be able to announce the total number of books donated by students and schools on the 19-20th of Ramadan. However, in terms of donations so far, we have almost touched three million books, with two million remaining,” said Al Grug.
He explained that the book donation campaign follows two simple processes. “The first is collecting the books, placing them in boxes and sending them to the International Humanitarian City, which will then send the books to beneficiary countries,” said Al Gurg.
The second process involves all donations made by the UAE community, which will be used to print new books according to the languages of the recipient countries. These books will then be distributed around 2,000 schools around the world that have a need for books in their libraries, said Al Gurg.
“It is all about the students. Children from our region supporting children from less fortunate parts of the world through books and a personal message is a phenomenal story,” said Al Gurg, adding that Dubai Cares is hopeful to achieve the target in the next 10 days.
Al Gurg also joined over 60 children at the Horizon School to pack the donated books into boxes.
“Books inspire people and send them to a happy world,” said 10-year-old Diya Daniel. Keeping count of all the packed books, Daniel said the students aim to help as many children as possible by donating and packing thousands of books.
Another 10 year-old, Reggie Harrison, who was taking part in the packing process, said his school is donating books to help Dubai Cares exceed the five million target.
“Lots of other children are not as fortunate as we are and don’t have books to keep them occupied. We are donating these books to them so they can feel what it’s like to escape to another world through reading,” said Harrison.
David Baldwin, Head teacher of Horizon School, described the response from students during open week as “overwhelming,” with many donating four to five books. “We projected just over 1,000 books, but it seems it will be in the thousands by the end of the day,” he said.
The school has also donated hundreds of books from its school-based library, and has encouraged their students, aged three to 11, to participate in the cause. “The children understand that they are in a very privileged position, and that this is a chance to help the less fortunate, especially in the spirit of Ramadan and charity,” said Baldwin. He pointed out that students jumped at the idea of donating books and reaching children like them in other parts of the world through their messages. “Its all about tolerance, acceptance and understanding,” added Baldwin.
The open week was organised under the management and supervision of Dubai Cares in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Abu Dhabi Education Council, and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) in Dubai.
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The ‘Reading Nation’ project is a new Ramadan campaign, which aims to distribute five million books to children in refugee camps and schools around the world. It was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as a part of his Global Initiatives. Out of the total five million books, the initiative will provide one million books to support educational programmes that are carried out by UAE humanitarian organisations abroad, two million books to provide knowledge and science at refugee camps and another two million books for libraries in 2,000 schools in the Arab and Islamic world.
