National Reading Championship concludes in Tunis

Location: Tunis – Tunisia
Language: Arabic
Duration:
Sound: natural
Source: A24 in Tunisia
Restrictions: A24 subscribers
Date: 11/13/2022

Storyline:

The National Reading Championship concluded Sunday in capital Tunis, with the participation of 1440 people of different ages from all Tunisian governorates.

The national competition began its second edition last February, in which thousands of Tunisians participated to read nearly one million books and take exams, which qualified a number of them for this national exam in the hall of Rades in Tunis. The event aims to encourage reading books again to spread culture among Tunisians.

Shotlist:

• Soundbite (Elias Al-Rabhi – Director of Public Reading Department at the Ministry of Culture):
  “For this competition, 1,140,000 books were read, with the participation of 140,000 Tunisians who obtained competition receipts through 436 public libraries from which they took books, the amount of which reaches 8 million. In the final round, the scientific committee recommended books that promote Tunisian thought and discuss issues in Tunisia, including women’s rights, openness and others. This event was attended by families, as well as prison institutions. Participants included 420 prisoners, 20 parents in nursing homes, 23 people with visual disabilities and 15 with different disabilities. This event concerns all ages from 6 to 80 years, as we wanted to spread the culture of book and reading again in order to instill reading as a cultural practice in Tunisian society through family. We also wanted to talk about shaping people by starting from the core and restoring the civilizational and cultural gap in our children’s generation.”
• Soundbite (Abdul Rahman Belkhaziriya – Participant, 10 years old, read more than 400 books in ten months):
  “I am 10 years old and a participant in this national reading championship in its second edition for the second time. I benefited a lot from this event, as I read more than 400 books. I started reading before I reached 6 years old, as my mother taught me to read. I can proudly say that my mother is my role model. She is the one who taught me the alphabet and phrase alignment.”
• Soundbite (Maysa bin Mami – Participant, 16 years old with blindness):
  “I started on February 5th to read thirty books from anthologies I selected. I summarized these books and were quizzed on them in regional exams. Afterwords, we are now in national exams and were presented with books chosen by the exam committee, and we will be quizzed on them today.”
• Soundbite (Obeidi Boualak – Participant, 70 years old, retired teacher):
  “In my opinion, this competition is the best thing the Ministry of Culture has done in Tunisia since the independence. Service of culture has been embodied by the ministry with this competition. There is great hunger for knowledge. Young people and parents are all here together, it is good to see and should be encouraged. I hope there are more events like this in the coming years so I can participate in them as well.”