Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association opened its ninth annual book fair at the Al-Saha Village hotel - airport road, under the patronage of the Lebanese Library Association represented by its president Randa Chidiac, and in the presence of the director general of Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association Dr Mohammad Baqir Fadlallah, members of the Lebanese Library Association, cultural, educational and social figures and bodies, directors of institutions and schools, members of the directorate of education and teaching at Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association, directors of departments at the association, and a group of publishing houses.
Jawad
The fair opened with a speech for the librarians at Al-Mabarrat delivered by Mirna Jawad, who said: “Our fair this year has a special cultural flavour, since a package of activities has been prepared targeting all age groups, in addition to the organization of poetry and literary contests and of media and educational meetings and activities - all so as to achieve the loftiest aim of Al-Mabarrat schools, namely building a cultured, aware generation open to the issues of its age.”
She added: “Our aim as librarians in Al-Mabarrat schools is no longer only to give this generation culture and to encourage it to read; rather we aim to support it and to offer all the means that help it to live the responsibility of creativity and culture, so that its mind may grow in cultural terms and it may become involved in its society and its environment and face the challenges of the age and its rapid, modern technologies, especially those that take it away from reading.”
She pointed out that “the entry of the pupils of Al-Mabarrat schools into the reading challenge project set up by the United Arab Emirates - the largest project of competition among the students of Lebanon's schools and of the Arab countries in reading - is the greatest proof of that, in addition to the holding of discussion circles with the students of the secondary section about the stories they read in the libraries”.
Chidiac
Afterwards came Chidiac's speech, in which she said: “It is a great honour for the Lebanese Library Association to be the patron of this annual celebration, since book fairs have attracted people for many years and their attraction is eternal. A book fair is a festive exhibition for the lovers of books; it is not basically a sales exhibition so much as a display of books on varied subjects and in different languages.”
She added: “With the accelerating pace of technological progress, the culture of reading among students and readers in general has changed in a positive way. Research indicates that the new form of the electronic book has increased the number of readers by three per cent compared with the reading rate with printed books, and that across all generations and all ages.”
The fair includes numerous activities and intellectual competitions, a contest in poetry recitation, a media activity for writing media texts and reading news bulletins, the honouring of the winners in the creative writing competition, as well as the reading of varied stories to the young pupils.
