(ONA) The Omani Writers and Literates Society has announced the results of the “Write Your Story” children's competition which came in the meaning of giving, “write your story” which means “write a story for you”.
The results came without rankings. Dawood bin Sulaiman bin Saeed Al-Shamli won for his story entitled “Lost Cartoon”, Afrah bint Ali bin Abdullah Al-Jabriya won for her story “Letters”, and Heba bint Jum'a Al-Baluchi won for her story “The Arrogant Rose”. In addition, Basma bint Abdullah bin Ali Al-Tamimiya won for her story “Kitchen Heroes”, Abdul Rahman bin Sinan Al-Ma’amari won for his story “The Poor Woodcutter”, and Shaden bint Saud bin Nasser Al Qasimi won for her story “Gift Bag”.
Badriya bint Rashid Al-Diriyah won for her story “the Smart Fox”, while Mohammed bin Salem Al-Nabhani won for his story “Train of Wonders”. Moreover, Al-Noor bint Ali Al-Shamliya won for her story “Noor and The Canary”, while Bayan bint Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Nabhaniya, won for her story “Sad Bricks”.
The writer Ahmed Al-Rashdi, head of the Children's Literature Committee of the Omani Society for Writers and Literates, the general supervisor of the competition, said that at the announcement stage, the committee distributed the advertisement widely targeting all governorates and schools, where it worked to provide answers with wide openness to all those asking about the points that needed clarification.
Al-Rashdi added that with regard to the receiving phase, the committee received dozens of emails, and notified the senders of the receipt. The committee also asked some to complete the missing information. As for the screening stage, the committee sought to sort the files that conform to the conditions and excluded the unconformable applications for a month. At the stage of the finalists, the texts whose content is consistent with the standards of children's literature were selected technically, and the committee excluded everything that deviates from the technical construction and contradicts the literary, educational or humanitarian standards.
He pointed out that at the stage of the long list, the committee selected the good texts according to technical, linguistic and educational standards. Also, during the verification phase, it undertook research and communicated to ascertain the authenticity of the ideas, so it excluded some stories in which confusion appeared. In the stage of the results, the stories that deserve to win and their owners were deserved to be honoured were selected. In the report preparation phase, a detailed report was prepared clarifying the progress of work, accompanied by detailed data.
The writer Ahmed Al-Rashdi, head of the Child Literature Committee of the Omani Society for Writers and Literates, explained that the committee set a timetable for completing the mission until announcing the results, honouring the winners, editing texts and rid them of impurities, in addition to drawing a painting for each winning work. The committee worked on preparing a book to publish stories within the society’s plan for this year. Winners will be presented with a copy with a shield when the coronavirus is gone, and the book will be launched.
Al-Rashdi indicated that the number of entries received for the competition has reached 375, the number of competing contributions was 286, while the number of entries qualified for the competition reached 72, the number of texts in the long list was 20, and the winning texts as announced were 10.
(ONA)