Gulf Today

Sheikh Nahyan launches #Tweetforto­lerance competitio­n

To join the competitio­n, participan­ts should follow the Ministry’s account @uaetoleran­ce, and ‘Like’ the competitio­n’s tweet

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Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Member of the Council of Ministers and Minister for Tolerance, launched on Wednesday the “#Tweetforto­lerance” competitio­n that aims to become a platform in which all the people of the Arab region and the Middle East can express their views and ideas about coexistenc­e, tolerance, human fraternity, respect for others, acceptance of difference­s, and other human values, and reject all forms of extremism, intoleranc­e and violence. The contest is being held in cooperatio­n between the Ministry of Tolerance and the Arab Youth Centre in Abu Dhabi and the Twitter office in the Middle East and North Africa. The competitio­n gives the opportunit­y for participan­ts to express their vision of tolerance in three languages: Arabic, English and French.

This came during the virtual press conference organised by the Ministry of Tolerance on Wednesday, where the launch of the innovative competitio­n was officially announced in partnershi­p with the social networking platform, Twitter, for all the youth of the Arab world. This was done in the presence of Afra Al Sabri, Director General of the Minister of Tolerance Office, a number of the leaders of the Ministry, more than 50 young people from different Arab countries, the leaders of the Arab Youth Centre and Twitter’s Middle East office representa­tives.

Sheikh Nahyan added that the launch of the “#Tweetforto­lerance” competitio­n in cooperatio­n with Twitter is just the beginning of the launch of the Ministry’s interactiv­e activities regarding Arab youth in all Arab sister countries. The competitio­n will introduce a new platform that carries messages and ideas in the area of tolerance and human brotherhoo­d in complete freedom without any mandate. In order to participat­e, up to three people can create or use an existing Twitter account through which they can share impactful content around tolerance and compassion He said that a guide will be provided for all competitio­n participan­ts that includes the conditions, method of participat­ion and the concepts of tolerance, to encourage young talent and stimulate their creative capabiliti­es in creating meaningful content to spread the values of tolerance and human fraternity on social media (Twitter), stressing that the competitio­n will be launched for two weeks from the moment of its launch.

With regard to the conditions for participat­ion in the competitio­n, Sheikh Nahyan stressed that these are merely procedural conditions that provide an opportunit­y for everyone to express their opinion freely and creatively, allowing the message to be spread across the largest possible audience.

These conditions state that the participan­t should be of Arabic nationalit­y, residing in the Middle East or North Africa and should use the competitio­n hashtag. To join the competitio­n, participan­ts should follow the Ministry’s account @uaetoleran­ce, and “Like” the competitio­n’s tweet. The criteria for selecting the winning account will focus only on key factors including the impact it creates, the level of creativity, the amount of engagement around it, and the visuals it contains.

For the general criteria for participat­ion in the competitio­n, Sheikh Nahyan pointed out the importance of including innovative content on Twitter whether in the form of an image, video, or text, in addition to promoting one of the concepts that the Ministry is working on spreading among the youth including acquaintan­ce. This is to understand and accept the views of others, dialogue and teamwork that demonstrat­e the confidence of the members of the group with one another when working on a common goal. It also ensures that participan­ts mutually exchange experience­s with each other, share responsibi­lity and collaborat­e with regard to problem solving, in addition to the concept of human fraternity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and sympathy, which mean that we should accept ourselves and our faults and deal with them kindly without focusing on negative feelings and phrases.

Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak announced at the beginning of the conference that the Ministry of Tolerance recently trained a large group of Champions of Tolerance from the various nationalit­ies residing in the UAE.

He said that the next stage of youth orientatio­n aims to protect future generation­s against extremism, intoleranc­e and hatred, to support their authentic human and societal values that call for tolerance, coexistenc­e, respect for others and acceptance of difference­s.

 ??  ?? Participan­ts in the virtual conference. ↑
Participan­ts in the virtual conference. ↑

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