The champion of the Arab Reading Challenge, a girl who miraculously escaped death

A 7-year-old Syrian girl won the title of “Arab Reading Challenge” in its sixth season today, Thursday, under the patronage and presence of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The girl, Sham Al-Bakour, the daughter of Aleppo Governorate, won the title of Syrian champion in the “Arab Reading Challenge” within the challenge competitions held by the UAE in its sixth edition this year, in which Syria is participating for the first time.

Al Saghira competed for the title at the Arab level, with 18 participants representing 18 Arab countries.

For her part, the mother of the Syrian girl said that her little girl survived an accident that killed her father, indicating that she miraculously escaped death after being hit by shrapnel.

Sham, who has read more than 100 books, as she said, was able to draw attention to her, and become the focus of local and Arab media attention, after appearing in a number of videos and interviews while speaking Standard Arabic with distinct fluency.

It is noteworthy that the Arab Reading Challenge competition was launched 6 years ago, and requires reading 50 books as a preliminary condition to enter the competition, and 22 million students from 44 countries around the world participated in its edition this year.

Those who qualified for the final stage of the challenge were selected according to specific criteria, after integrated electronic qualifying qualifiers carried out by the judging committees of the "Arab Reading Challenge".

The Arab Reading Challenge is organized by the "Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives", and aims to build a generation capable of reading and knowledge and to enhance the status of the Arabic language as a language of science, literature and knowledge production.