The ‘Read, Dream, Create’ campaign (RDC), an initiative of the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY) to nurture a new generation of young readers, has organised a diverse range of interactive activities and workshops at UAEBBY’s Stand at the 10th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF), at Expo Centre Sharjah.

The activities include a workshop titled ‘How to Write a Story’, which shows children all the elements needed to author a great book, including forming characters, plots and sequences of events, stimulating their imaginations and enriching their tales with new adventures. During the session, a story, ‘Cotton Cloud’, was read to children, who were then asked to play the roles of the characters.

Another RDC workshop, ‘A Journey with Thinking Skills’, teaches children how to distinguish between fact, fiction and opinion. The youngsters engaged in a range of interactive activities, such as decorating paintings with coloured sand and seashells, making ceramic candlesticks and 3D pens, creating bookmarks using dried flowers and producing book models using coloured flour to inspire their artistic and creative talents.

The campaign also organised a host of story readings from Kalimat publications, including ‘A Rocket to Space’, ‘High and Far’, ‘Melia the Giraffe’ and ‘The Tree of Memories”.

SCRF, which is being held under the theme ‘Your Future… Just a Book Away’, concludes tomorrow (Saturday).

Launched by the UAEBBY in 2013, the Read, Dream, Create campaign aims to bring young people and books together and promote the importance of reading among all members of the Emirati community, particularly children. It also aims to develop the capabilities of children and young adults in reading and writing, encourage them to read, innovate and create, as well as hone their writing skills and transform their ideas into engaging, well written stories. The campaign has sought to encourage all community segments to participate and volunteer in the reading events it has organised.