US embassy celebrates local talent at Young Writers Open Mic Night
The US embassy, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, celebrated local talent at the third Young Writers Open Mic Night at the Education City Student Center recently.
During the event, participants enjoyed an evening of comedy, poetry, music and spoken word performance by students and members of the wider community. Five performers took home the evening’s top prizes for their outstanding performances.
Headlining the event was wellknown comedian and influencer Hamad al-Amari, also known as ‘The Qatari Guy’.
Al-Amari’s performance warmed up the audience and set the stage for the other acts that followed, including Meddy.com founder and CMU-Q alumnus Abdulla AlKhenji’s performance on the oud, and CMU-Q student Raghid Bsat’s Arabic poetry recitation.
Open Mic Night has emerged as one of the US embassy’s most popular public events as a result of their Young Writers Program (YWP), the according to a statement.
YWP, a partnership between the embassy and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, seeks to inspire young people in Qatar to read, write and think critically about important topics in society while practising their English language and critical thinking skills.
For the past five years, students from 135 ministry schools have participated in the YWP and its annual writing competition.
For more information about the YWP, one can visit the Young Writers Qatar website at https://youngwritersqatar.com/