The third session of "Sharjah reading Festival " which will be held during the period from 14 to February 21, 2010, and organized by the General Administration of children's centers –which is one of the institutions of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs – in Sharjah, comes to affirm the desire of the emirate to support the continuity of all that would assist in the development of the society, and upgrading the knowledge for all various aspects of classes. As the child is the basic unit of society, so, the attention has been paid to him and work for his education is natural and compatible with the attitudes of the Emirates High Command, which aimed to create a knowledge-based society and capable of dealing with the Age developments, especially in the areas of culture and knowledge.
This session comes as a confirmation of the success of the previous two sessions of the festival, which have been held in 2006 and 2008 under the slogan of "Let's read" under the auspices of Sharjah Ruler’s wife, HH Sheikha Jawahir Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Chairman of the "Supreme Council for Family Affairs." The two sessions events has been characterized by their inclusive and diversity through many of frameworks and different templates, it included directly working with children and adults through seminars, lectures and workshops, which led to the success of the festival to put itself as one of the great cultural and distinguish work by all standards, not only in the UAE alone, but also on the level of the entire region.
In this context, Ehsan El Swedi - Head of the festival and the General Director of the general department of children's centers – indicates that this event comes at a time where children are exposed to many of the temptations from the playing and recreation tools, and they are targeted from numerous of satellite channels which wasted their time in unhelpful things, she is asserting that the festival comes to provide reading and knowledge to children in a form consistent with their spirit, in the big world, which vary in their parameters, and vary in their trends, reading will remain the most common denominator, for people to know each other, cultures to be reconciled and interlocutor in his favor.
Alswedi added that the festival is a fulfillment of the directives of HH Sheikha Jawahir in building the human, which is the highest goal in the thought of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, she calls all departments and various segments of society to harness all their energies and their groups to serve children and guiding them to interact with such civilized events, which reflect a genuine desire to promote the cultural movement, consistent with the requirements of the times.
In this sense, "Children's Book Fair", which is one of the major festival events aims to upbringing the children to love reading and knowledge, and spreading the awareness of the importance of reading and its impact on the individual and society, and emphasizing the role of the family in encouraging children to read, and to provide innovative and effective means enough to stimulate the children to read , as well as to support the movement of child’s book publication.
"Let's read."
At the last session in 2008, The General Administration of children's centers conducted a survey study with the cooperation of the "University of Sharjah," including all the emirates, to identifying the trends towards reading, the study included a broad sample that included about two thousand of the categories of students and parents. The clarification questions was targeted to identify the general trends toward reading, through its hubs, which focused on the views of the sample in the free reading, and the preferences of its competitors, and the rate of spending on them, the number of reading hours, in addition to literacy difficulties.
The study found positive results, the literacy behaviors of the students showed a high percentage of those who have the literacy skills from children beside the availability of reading awareness between them. With regard to literacy behaviors among the families and their children, the results of the study showed that the parents have good reading behavior with their children, such as encouraging them to innovative literacy skills and encouraging them to study the textbooks.
In order to achieve the objectives of the festival, we sought to introduce a variety of events, which will be seen during the upcoming third session in February 2010, comes in the forefront " Sharjah Forum for Children's Book," which will host a group of experts and intellectuals who interested in children's books publishing sector, to discuss a range of themes and topics related to the Child book and culture and the mechanisms of their development, and the challenges facing this sector.
In the new session, it will be also a group of corners and suites, which designed a specially for the development of mental abilities of children, and training workshops aims to hone the skills of participants from children, parents, educators and who interested, in a variety of topics related to the activity of the Festival, with the contribution with elite of trainers, experts and intellectuals.
The festival will be accompanied with cultural campaign in a variety of educational institutions such as schools and universities, through a variety of activities, lectures, capable of contributing in the awareness development of the importance of reading. The festival campaigns will extend to places and institutions far from Sharjah Emirate, in order to promote and publicize its objectives, the festival will also have the competition, "Let's read." which aims to encourage children to read.
A unique case
And in order to complement the successes of the festival, we look forward to be a unique case of its kind in the region and it is expected to be continued and maintain its success, and to achieve the desired goals, all segments of society should cooperate to support the festival, and to help it in achieving a positive results in the development of children's culture, the educational and psychological research have shown the importance of the first five years in building the child's personality and identify his behavior patterns, and that is what makes his upbringing and guidance is a matter deserves the comprehensive attention and effort and thinking and cooperation.
