Al Sharqiyah South Governorate is participating in the Muscat International Book Fair in its 26th edition as the guest of honour. The fair was opened on Thursday under the patronage of His Highness Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham al Said, Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, at Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The patron of the event visited the governorate pavilion accompanied by Dr Yahya bin Badr al Maawali, Governor of South Al Sharqiyah. He was briefed on the exhibits including various publications and films, besides a photo corner documenting the components that characterise the governorate, its rich history, geographic nature, promising economic elements, and its cultural and human heritage.
Khalifa bin Saleh al Busaidy, Wali of Al Kamil W’al Wafi and the General Supervisor of the sub-committees for the governorate’s participation in the exhibition, said: “The selection of South Al Sharqiyah Governorate to be the guest of honour in this current edition of MIBF is a matter for which we thank the organisers of the exhibition as this provides us with the opportunity to highlight intellectual, cultural and heritage diversity, as well as the economic investment opportunities the governorate contains.”
Dr Nasser bin Saeed al Ateeqi, Chairman of the Programmes and Events Committee, said: “The main committee has begun to work in an effort to show the governorate’s participation at a high level, through several measures, most notably with the formation of various organisational committees, including the Programmes and Events Committee that consists of a group of academics, writers, intellectuals, poets, and those interested in the cultural and literary affairs in the governorate.
“We held a series of intensive preparatory meetings to set the schedule of the cultural programme within the general cultural programme accompanying the exhibition. This was in addition to selecting writers, poets and innovators from the governorate, and communicating and coordinating with them in order to ensure the participation of the largest possible number of them.”
Al Ateeqi clarified that the governorate’s participation programme will hold 34 programmes and activities, including dialogue sessions, poetry evenings, scientific symposiums, lectures, plays, workshops and programmes aimed at family and children. The governorate pavilion will witness signing ceremonies for new publications of a number of writers and intellectuals from different wilayats of the South Al Sharqiyah Governorate.
The activities of the cultural programme of the governorate were launched on the first day with four activities, where a dialogue session entitled “Investment Opportunities in the Governorate of South Al Sharqiyah” was held at Ahmed bin Majid Theatre.
In the same hall, a cultural lecture was held in the evening, on the role of teachers and their importance in society. The lecture delivered by Dr Mutasim bin Rashid al Balushi touched upon teachers in the educational process, and the attention paid by the Sultanate of Oman to academics in general.
An evening of folk poetry was also organised, in which a number of poets from the governorate participated, in addition to an event entitled “Rising Talents” organised by the Omani Women’s Association in Sur, at the Children’s Corner Theatre.
On the second day on Friday, the cultural programme of South Al Sharqiyah Governorate will include two artistic workshops on the basics of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic decoration, a storyteller’s play “Reading the Storyboard”, and a scientific symposium entitled “Critical and Narrative approaches”, in addition to a lecture entitled “Photos and their Relationship to the Sea through Sea Songs”.
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