In these difficult times, the UAE continues to inspire the world by celebrating literature at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature to be held from 3-13 February, 2022. The festival is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, under the auspices of the Emirates Literature Foundation.
The foundation has revealed its educational programme for students at the upcoming festival, releasing tickets which schools can obtain.
After the success of the virtual programme in 2021, the 2022 session will resume providing a set of virtual sessions for schools over a full month, between 10 February and 10 March, 2022, with nominal fees to be paid by participating schools, not borne by students. The virtual programme allows access to the Emirates Airline Festival, especially to those who will not be able to visit the festival physically.
Ahlam Bolooki, Festival Director, Emirates Airline Festival of Literature said, “We are in constant search and in continuous work to make our festival and educational programme more comprehensive and easy, and the pandemic has forced us to focus on providing virtual programmes that allow the public to participate and follow up remotely.” Bolooki also expressed her happiness with the flexible nature of the virtual programme, “which gave us the opportunity to reach a wider segment of students, even those who receive their education remotely, by saving the time and effort required for transportation and obtaining individual tickets for each student. We are pleased to host, this year, a distinguished group of writers who would interact with the students and are confident that they will be a source of inspiration for our youth across the country.”
English language sessions will be hosted by prominent litterateurs including British author Polly Dunbar, British television presenter, writer, and actor Layne Redman, Filipino-American author Erin Entrada Kelly, Indian author Nayanika Mahtani, and Colombian American poet, speaker, actor, and educator Carlos Andres Gomez.
The Arabic sessions will be hosted by none other than Syrian author Gulnar Hajo, Emirati writer Nadia Al-Najjar, Kuwaiti writer and academic Ali Ashour Al-Jaffar, Lebanese writer Sahar Naga Mahfouz, and Egyptian writer Hadil Ghoneim.
A limited number of in-person educational sessions for school trips are available at the festival site in Al Habtoor City, a multi-use development in Dubai. The number of students allowed for each school is limited to 30 students. Tickets are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.
The festival will celebrate the winners of the Emirates NBD Poetry for All, the Royal Grammar School Guildford Dubai’s letter writing competition, the Chevron Readers’ Cup, and the Story Writing Competition within the award ceremonies that take place during the festival period.
As part of a free event on 5 February, 2022, the Voices of Future Generations, a unique writing initiative created to promote sustainability, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child will launch the second group that includes the winning entries in the competition and crown the School Librarian of the Year Award 2022 in a special ceremony.
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