Qatar Foundation to launch National Reading Campaign

Qatar Foundation (QF) is set to launch a National Reading Campaign that is designed to incubate a love of literature amongst all residents, with a special focus on children.  

QF will seek to unite the individual literacy efforts of relevant organisations countrywide to create one, consolidated platform that will enable entities to collectively promote a passion for reading throughout the entire community. Through a series of innovative and interactive projects, the nationwide initiative will make books readily accessible to the people of Qatar, and encourage their uptake.

The campaign demonstrates QF’s commitment to incubating self-learning amongst all residents of Qatar and beyond. Other QF initiatives, such as the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) and Qatar National Library, further illustrate this goal and, through the National Reading Campaign, the Foundation aims to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge for all.

“By incubating a deep-rooted culture of self-learning, Qatar Foundation is working to inspire a passion for innovation,” said Mr Fahad Saad Al Qahtani, President of Community Development, Qatar Foundation. “Reading is the primary building block for learning, as it helps to encourage a range of soft skills in young minds, including learning, understanding and creativity.

“Extensive research has revealed that reading aloud is the single most important activity for improving language and literacy skills and, amongst other things, this initiative will seek to promote this activity. Ultimately, we hope that this campaign will contribute to the continuing development of this nation,” he added.

The first stage of the year-round National Reading Campaign, focusing on schoolchildren across Qatar, is already underway. Regular reading sessions are taking place at many local schools, in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, to help engender a love of reading from an early age.

A dynamic schedule of activities and events will be launched in the months ahead, each of them designed to demonstrate that reading can be fun, exciting and informative. These include the Reading Truck, which is a dedicated vehicle that will operate as a mobile library; Vending Machines, which will be circulated around schools and allow children to exchange up to ten books at a time; and interactive, immersive story telling sessions and nationwide competitions. And, as the initiative gathers momentum, more activities and events will be announced, each of them positioned to make reading an essential part of the nation’s daily routine.

Furthermore, as the National Reading Campaign evolves to include the wider public in its subsequent phases, the initiative will provide abundant reading and storytelling opportunities, in collaboration with local stakeholders and partners, designed to involve the whole family. These include pop-up stores and public activities which will encourage parents, teachers and institutions to be actively involved in promoting a book-loving culture in Qatar.