Abu Dhabi: With celebrations for the UAE’s 41st National Day just around the corner, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development(MCYCD) is firmly focused on preserving the country’s identity - particularly among the nation’s youth.
A major player in furthering one of the UAE leadership’s key objectives of preserving and promoting national identity among young people, the MCYCD has spent the past year focusing on the government of the UAE’s strategy in granting special importance to young people.
In terms of the UAE population, young people aged between 15-25 make up 52.9 per cent.
This is why MCYCD emphasises the need to focus on creating awareness about the preservation of national identity and developing the leadership skills and capabilities among young people as a crucial group in society.
Abdul Rahman Mohammad Al Owais, Minister of Culture Youth and Community Development said: “One of the Ministry’s key objectives emphasises the importance of preserving the national identity by encouraging young people to actively participate in upholding their country’s cultural heritage through a range of programmes.
“We at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development, never hesitated to keep pace with the UAE’s triumphal march towards a brighter future, leadership and people alike.
“We have kept pace with our country’s ambitions aiming at equipping our citizens with the best of everything, in order to allow them to access the age of digital technology equipped with all our goals, achievements and aspirations, and using them to sustain the communication frameworks between us and others.”
The Young Innovations programme is one of the ministry’s major initiatives that addresses young people and provides them with the tools to promote creativity and encourage them to contribute in spreading cultural values.
It focuses on young people who have a talent in writing and are interested in publishing their work in order to highlight their talents and explore them through appropriate channels in order to raise awareness about the importance of literature and reading among the country’s youth.
The scheme aims to support and highlight young UAE talent by introducing them to the literary scene through a partnership between the ministry, educational institutions and creative young people themselves.
Emirates National Catalogue of Libraries, another MCYCD initiative corresponds with the UAE government’s 2021 vision in becoming a leading country by 2021 through employing knowledge and innovation as one of its tools in achieving this goal.
The MCYCD libraries department representatives prepared the Emirates National Catalogue of Libraries with the aim of developing the libraries systems and enhance their role in providing an advanced electronic interface, facilitating the search of library collections through a partnership among libraries at a national level.
Another successful MCYCD initiative has been Promoting Creativity in activities such as fine art exhibitions that target national and non-national residents interested in fine arts.
The ministry also supports and sponsors all sorts of arts and documentation of heritage that connects the past with the present and future such as obtaining distinguished art pieces like sculptures, paintings and calligraphy.
An example of the Promoting Creativity initiative was the drawing and calligraphy “Seer’s Eyes” gallery that took place in the Chinese city of De Jean Yang.
Over 22 artists from the UAE and China participated in the joint Emirati and Chinese gallery exhibition that took place from April 8-13 this year in coordination between the ministry and the Federation of Chinese Society in the Middle East, based in Dubai.
MCYCD also cooperated with the UAE Embassy in Turkey and organised the Emirati Cultural Festival, in Turkey on October 4, in order to familiarise the Turkish people with the UAE’s culture - in addition to enhancing cultural exchanges between the two countries.
An art gallery that exhibited Nabati poems by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai under the title ‘Knight’s Dream’ was also presented at a mall in Turkey.
Looking to the future, MCYCD is planning a series of events and activities to celebrate the 41st UAE National Day.
One of the activities that the ministry has planned includes the planned launch of the fifth edition of the Outstanding Schools competition on December 2.
A meeting was held with the educational zone, public and private schools to inform them about the terms for entering the Outstanding Schools competition 2012.
Last year’s Outstanding Schools competition saw judges evaluate the work of 60 schools from across the emirates to select the winners as part of the National Day celebrations.
The Ministry was first established under the name of the Ministry of Information and Culture, according to article (58) of the temporary constitution of the United Arab Emirates, and under the federal decree No (1) issued in 1972, determining the functions of the Ministries and the powers of the Ministers.
In 2006, Decree No (1) was issued, amending some of the terms of federal decree No (1) issued in 1972.
The Ministry of Information and Culture was abolished and was substituted by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development.
