Biggest children's book in world presented to schools

The Kalima project, affiliated to the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, started the distribution of the "Abu Dhabi Alternative Energy Bag" on Sunday to top students at a number of schools in Al Gharbia (the Western Region) in Abu Dhabi. This came to commemorate the World Book Day and to follow up the initiative of "Abu Dhabi Bag for Children and Juveniles", amid great celebration by students and teachers alike. The initiative, under the sponsorship of General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, comes as part of efforts to promote love for reading among students and enhance the culture of protecting the environment, under the slogan of "My Environment illuminates my Home." The Sunday Kalima tour in Zayed City in Al Gharbia covered: Zayed Al-Khair Model School for Boys, Al Dhafra Basic Education for Girls. On Monday, Kalima will visit Al-Tafawuq Model School for Boys, and Al-Faw'ah Basic Education for Girls in the City of Al Ain. During the tour, the "Abu Dhabi Alternative Energy Bag" was distributed to outstanding students at the schools. The bag contained the alternative energy series, which includes eight books translated into Arabic: How to Reduce your Carbon Footprint; Building a Green Community; Hydrogen: Running on Water; Geothermal Energy: Using Earth’s Furnace; Ocean, Tidal, and Wave Energy: Power from the Sea; Harnessing Power from the Sun; Generating Wind Power; and Biomass: Fueling Change. The Zayed Al-Khair School and the Al Dhafra School were presented the biggest children's book in the world, published by Kalima and is entitled "In the Land of Tito”. The book is distinguished as it carries the child between its covers. The little reader can physically sit inside this book during reading, in an experiment that is quite different from what is familiar in children's Arabic books. The book is 94cm long and is 35cm wide. In shape and content, the book introduces a new world to the child, accompanying him on a journey of colours, words, and magic to the land of Tito. The "alternative energy" series explores the various renewable energy sources and how to use them, and calls for changing our way of life to save energy and reduce waste by cutting consumption, re-using and recycling. The series points out that that there are two types of energy sources: renewable and non-renewable. The sources of non-renewable energy, such as oil, coal and natural gas, will run out in the future, and they emit carbon dioxide and other gases that cause pollution and global warming, and harm the environment, the series explains. For this reason, the renewable energy sources must be exploited and their techniques must be improved to preserve the environment, taking into account the running out of other fuels. Kalima has recently published a new book entitled “Les Énergies Renouvelables” by Jacques Vernier, which addresses the issue of energy as the driving force and backbone of human civilisation. Dr. Ali bin Tamim, Director of the Kalima, has stressed the importance of this initiative, which comes under the auspices of General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, as part of the cultural strategy of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the rapid efforts to encourage the young generation to read and promote their environmental culture. He emphasised that the initiative comes in line with the UAE's interest in renewable energy, and establishes Abu Dhabi as the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). It is also taking place amid rising calls to move away from non-renewable energy sources. "The value of the book in human life is great, and human development cannot be achieved in isolation from knowledge and science. Since reading is important in human life, looking after the generation of children and young people underlines this significance, and contributes to increasing the numbers of readers in the future," said Abdul Aziz Ali Al Mansouri, the Deputy Director of the Educational District in Al Gharbia. "We, therefore, thank the sponsor of the Kalima translation project initiative at the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for his interest and support for culture, education and his sponsorship of scientific and educational projects. Such projects contribute to supporting the cultural movement in society and enhancing the usefulness of education," he added. The students were extremely happy with this distinguished gift which encourages them into reading. In the meanwhile, the educational supervisors praised the major role played by the Kalima in the translation of international cultural creative works into the Arabic language, and raising awareness about the importance of alternative energy and conservation of the environment, as part of a comprehensive educational, cultural process. They stressed that the book is the cornerstone of cultural development, and that boosting the activities of translation into Arabic will contribute to bridging the knowledge gap between our Arab world and other nations. Kalima is one of the most prominent projects of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. Over three years, the project has taken care of the translation of more than 500 books into Arabic from various world languages, and in various literary, cultural, scientific, environmental, economic, social and political areas. It now translates about one-third of the number of books translated in the Arab World. Kalima adopts the translation of international literary works from foreign languages into Arabic, including the children's literature works. The initiative of "Abu Dhabi Alternative Energy Bag" comes to continue the initiative of "Abu Dhabi bag for the Youth", which was launched by Kalima in 2010, and through which 1,000 bags were distributed to students. Each bag contained 10 publications, translated into Arabic, of the world literary works aimed at the youth by a number of the most famous writers in this area, ranging between English, French and German. This constituted a nucleus and a building block to creating a library for each family. In 2009, "Abu Dhabi Bag for Children" was distributed to first stage students at the schools of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, under the patronage of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. Those in charge of the Kalima have made concrete efforts in the search for and selection of the most famous books, and getting the rights of translation and publication. The choice was successful for a range of books which had a rich content and sublime human values, values that all societies, with their different colours, races, languages, and geographical locations, are keen to nurture in generations to appear in their behaviors, ambitions and relations with the family, society and humanity in general.