UAEBBY launches Reading Challenge for active social media users

SHARJAH, 24th March, 2015 (WAM) -- The UAE Board on Books for Young People, UAEBBY, has launched an exciting new initiative under the umbrella of its innovative "Read.Dream.Create" campaign, which aims to bring children and books to together and support children’s ability to read, write, innovate and create. Focused on the realm of social media, the ‘Reading Challenge’ initiative challenges all active in the use of social media to carry out reading sessions for students in schools and kindergartens in the various emirates of the UAE. The idea of the challenge is that one activist on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram will read different books, especially winning books of the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature, to a group of a school or kindergarten children in one of the UAE’s emirates. Then, he/she will select another activist from these social networking platforms to do the same in another school or kindergarten, with the aim to increase communication between users of modern media and children under the age of ten, encouraging them to read and enjoy books. Commenting on the occasion, Marwa Obaid Al Aqroubi, President of the UAEBBY Executive Board, said, "We are delighted with the keen response shown by avid Emirati users of social media to this initiative which is part of the "Read.Dream.Create" campaign, through which we are looking forward to encourage children to read books. The involvement of these dynamic young men and women in this initiative will increase children’s interaction and instil a love of books in their hearts, because of the direct personal contact they will have with the storytellers." She added that every reading session of the Reading Challenge includes reading 4 to 5 books in one selected school or kindergarten. "Reading sessions are accompanied by exciting and fun activities such as drawing, colouring, sound mimicking, and making collages to provide an integrated activity that attracts children and motivates them to create and use their imagination," she said. Al Aqroubi announced that the "Read.Dream.Create" campaign welcomes volunteers, and that anyone who would like to take part in the Reading Challenge can contact the UAEBBY on the campaign’s website. – Emirates News Agency, WAM – http://www.wam.ae/en/news/general/1395278323561.html