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KT edit: VP shines light on life’s lessons in his new book

This is not the first time that Sheikh Mohammed has published a book for his younger fans.

The world of penmanship is not a new one to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and the Ruler of Dubai. The author of six works to date, his writings have long proven a treasure trove of inspiration and food for thought. On Saturday, however, when the UAE VP announced the launch of a brand-new book, it wasn’t his regular target audience that he had in mind. Titled My Little World, this publication is specially dedicated to children and consists of five stories that give young readers a peek into the experiences in the Dubai Ruler’s formative years that shaped who he grew up to be.

This is not the first time that Sheikh Mohammed has published a book for his younger fans. A few years ago, he had published the beautifully illustrated children’s book called Two Great Leaders for Arabic-speaking school children across the UAE. His keen interest in the welfare and empowerment of the country’s youth has made headlines several times in recent years. One of his most memorable initiatives in this regard was the Arab Reading Challenge that he launched in 2015. Sheikh Mohammed has always set his sights high, and it was no different with the challenge that sought to see a million children in the region read 50 Arabic books each. Recognising the “reading crisis” that the Arab world was suffering from, he announced a reward of US$3 million for educators and students, as well as $1 million for the top school.

The next year, he went one step further and declared 2016 the Year of Reading. A reading ‘crisis’ is no exaggeration for what educators are seeing in this part of the world. According to statistics released by the Arab Thought Foundation, for every six minutes that Arab children spend reading, their counterparts in the West would have read for 200 hours. It is a testament to the success of Sheikh Mohammed’s initiative, however, that the Arab Reading Challenge has continued to run every year since. “Reading opens minds, magnifies hunger for knowledge and instils the values of openness and moderation that define great civilisations,” he once said. Those are true words to live by — and Sheikh Mohammed is, as he always is, at the forefront of driving the change the region needs to see.