Al-Mabarrat schools opened the “Seventh Spring Activities Festival” at the Doha Educational and Care Complex - Khaldeh, with the participation of 2,040 pupils from the teaching cycles across all of Al-Mabarrat's academic schools and vocational institutes, attended by the Director General of Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association Dr. Mohammad Baqer Fadlallah, the directors of the educational, vocational, care and cultural institutions, and the directors of the central departments.
The festival included 68 competitions spread across the following subjects: science, mathematics, technology, robotics and artificial intelligence, translation, arts and theatre, the Arabic, French and English languages, stories and reading, drawing, the environment, sport, community service, Nahj Al-Balagha, the Treatise on Rights of Imam Zain Al-Abidin, and the Holy Quran. Judging was overseen by 61 judging committees and 221 judges.
The festival opened with the Lebanese national anthem, then the Director General of Al-Mabarrat Dr. Mohammad Baqer Fadlallah delivered a speech in which he said: “We are holding the Spring Festival amid all this fog from the aggression on Gaza and the tragedies of thousands of its children and pupils, who have been deprived of learning and of school and who live with the savage machine of killing. We also take pride in the participating pupils of the South, who were displaced from their schools, hoping that God will grant victory to those defending the land and dignity. Your presence today is a sign of our commitment to clearing the clouds from the sky of your lives and to providing everything needed so that you may be the strength, and be both the causes of learning and its fruits.”
He pointed out that “this scene embodied before us in this arena took shape thanks to the mission-driven qualities of every teacher, educator and administrator, at a time when digitization tries to dominate, to cancel our minds and to turn our pupils into mere audiences for smartphone screens and technological media. So today's festival comes to affirm that the country will not recover from its crises except by embracing its human resources as a guaranteed future wealth - and if we lose them, we will have lost a great deal.”
He added: “All of Al-Mabarrat's schools, institutes and care institutions remain arenas of excellence in various fields, and we mention in particular the Al-Hadi Foundation, which has taken part inside and outside Lebanon as a special-needs school. The schools' threshing floors are still laden with gold, silver and bronze medals, as well as cash prizes and first places, and there is not room to name the pupils, the teams and the schools. The universities and bodies organizing these competitions are many: the American, the Lebanese, Al-Maaref, Phoenicia, the Jesuit and the University of Sciences and Arts in Lebanon, the Ministries of Education and of Youth and Sports, the Arab Thought Foundation, the State of the Emirates, the Arab League, organizing associations and bodies, and educational institutions - the latest being the competition of the National Council for Scientific Research, in which Al-Mabarrat schools took part alongside 90 schools from Lebanon.”
He addressed the students, saying: “You are the builders of the homeland and you are its hope. All of you are winners today and all of you have gained, for you are worthy of this competition, as are the many who did not take part in it. In proportion to your responsibility you will, God willing, fulfil your administrations' ambitions for you, and the ambitions of your families, whom we take pride in and who take pride in you - you are the delight of their eyes, so be worthy of their hopes in you.”
