The youngest participant in this year’s Arab Reading Challenge, seven-year old Sham Bakour from Syria, on Thursday joined the pantheon of Arab reading champions, besting millions of Arab youth from across the world who participated in the annual reading challenge launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in 2015.
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Standing beside His Highness before the announcement of winners, Bakour, who won Dh500,000, displayed confidence and grace at such a young age. She earlier defeated more than 61,000 participants in Syria to claim the right to represent her home country in the biggest reading challenge in the Arab world.
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Sheikh Mohammed hands over the trophy for the outstanding supervisor to Noor Jabour from Jordan.
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The Al Mokhtar Gazoulit School from Morocco won the Best School Award and a prize of AED1 million, out of more than 92,000 schools that participated in the sixth edition of the Arab Reading Challenge.
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Sheikh Mohammed with Mariam Amjoun, the Moroccan champion of the third edition of Arab Reading Challenge.
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Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai, with finalists and winners of Arab Reading Challenge 2022, at Dubai Opera, Dubai.
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His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum honoured the national winners from across the Arab world for the exceptional achievement.
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Sham Mohammed Al Bakour after winning the Arab Reading Champion in Dubai.
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The audience at the final ceremony watched the ‘National Anthem of Arab Countries’ operetta, which featured a selection of artists from different Arab countries. The operetta, which included selected clips from the national anthems of Arab countries, celebrated the Arab Reading Champions.
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The number of participants in each Arab Reading Challenge continues to increase year-on-year. Approximately 3.6 million students from 19 countries participated in the first edition, with the number doubling in the second edition to more than 7.4 million students from 26 countries. As the third edition allowed entries from outside the Arab world, the number of participants reached 10.5 million from 44 countries. The number of participants in the fourth edition of the Challenge exceeded 13.5 million students from 49 countries, while the number of participants in the fifth edition reached 21 million students from 52 countries.
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The sixth Arab Reading Challenge registered 22.27 million participants from 44 countries, making it the biggest since the Challenge was launched.
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