Duabi, UAE, October 25, 2016:  The Higher Organizing Committee of the first edition of the Arab Reading Challenge today announced that the Talaih Al Amal High School from Nablus in Palestine was the well-deserved winner of the schools award. The school was awarded a ceremonial plaque and US$1 million in prize money by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at a glittering award ceremony at Dubai Opera.

The literary initiative was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoumin September 2015. This initiative represents the largest Pan Arab project to date that encourages the youth to read. 

The Arab Reading Challenge Higher Committee indicated that Talaih Al Amal High school from  Palestine outperformed  two other schools as the three finalists, winning the title and prize money. Of the total amount, US$200,000 was awarded to the school director and supervisors, while remaining US$800,000 were earmarked to support the school, its library, activities, and the school’s educational programs that promote reading.

The Talaih Al Amal High School comprises classes from the primary level to grade 11. The school has a strength of 3,100 students, of which 800 participated in the Challenge.

The winning Palestinian school completed all the criteria stipulated in the interpretative guide for the school category within the Arab Reading Challenge. 
The school registered an exceptional performance through high quality planning and well-organized motivation exercises and through training and mobilizing supervisors for the Arab Reading Challenge, in addition to leveraging all available human and financial resources for the project.

The school allocated 20 minutes daily for free reading and summarizing of books by the students and proactively printed 3,000 reading passports at its own expense to gain time while waiting to receive the original passports from the Arab Reading Challenge team. The school also incorporated reading activities in the final score of the students. 

The school succeeded in its goal through remarkable teamwork, encouraging 830 students to finish at least 50 books each. The motivation of the school led many students to assemble their own libraries at home. 

The pre-final stage included five schools: Talaih Al Amal High School from Palestine, Al Iman School from Bahrain, American Languages School from Egypt, Tawanza Science School from Algeria and Ibn Taimia School from Morocco. The Egyptian, Bahraini and Palestinian schools competed in the final stage and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid awarded the Director of Talaih Al Amal High School with the winning plaque for the Arab Reading Challenge.