Category: Contests

As part of the initiatives of its Center of Arabic for Non-Arabic Speakers, the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) has announced the opening of nominations for the 2^nd edition of ICESCO “Bayan” Award for Creative Expression in Arabic for 2021. The Award will be granted to three winners from each age category: youth (USD 2,000) teens (USD 1,500), and children (USD 1,000).

The Bayan Award aims at promoting creativity and production in Arabic among non-Arabic speakers, highlighting the universality of Arabic, complementing both the educational and cultural dimensions, and encouraging the development of language skills through creative writing and oral expression.

The contest consists of an oral expression that the candidate records in a creatively and artfully produced short video based on a text written in Standard Arabic (verse, prose, article, or short story). Nominations must address either of the following themes: Post-COVID learning, prevention is better than cure, cultural diversity, or technology and the future.

Nomination criteria:

• The candidate must be a student from a non-Arab country, whose first language is not Arabic;
• The work must be submitted through the student’s educational institution;
• The educational institution must nominate only one work;
• The video must not exceed three (3) minutes in length for children, four (4) minutes for teens, and five (5) minutes for youth;
• The video must be artfully and creatively produced;
• The video must not have been published or nominated for another contest;
• The application file must include the video, the written text, and the duly filled-in nomination form. The form can be downloaded via the link below: http://www.icesco.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/ICESCO-Award-BAYAN-second-edition.pdf

Nominations must be sent before July 30^th, 2021 to the following email: bayanaward2@icesco.org

The Award Jury will examine the nomination files that have met the criteria and select winners, who will be announced on ICESCO’s website and through official letters to the competent parties. In addition to the prize money, winners will receive appreciation certificates.

The Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) announces the launch of the ICESCO Prize for Women’s Poetry: “Poem of the Year of Women 2021,” which will be awarded to three laureates during which the best poems will be published in a special collection.

The Prize, which ICESCO’s Arabic Language Centre for Non-Arabic Speakers will supervise, is part of the Organization’s programmes celebrating the Year of Women, placed under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

The Award aims to promote women’s poetry in classical Arabic (fus’hâ) and revitalize its positive role in promoting cultural interaction and human communication. It also aims to enrich the Arab library and the poetic scene with a plethora of quality women’s poems, dealing with women, their concerns, hopes, and aspirations. The goal is also to consolidate the presence of creative women poets in the Arab literary spheres and allow them to compete and make known their achievements and roles in promoting society through literature.

A jury composed of ICESCO specialists and renowned poets will evaluate the poems to select three winners who will receive an award of US$ 2000, US$ 1500, and US$ 1000, respectively. ICESCO will also award the winners certificates of appreciation and publish the best poems in the competition.

As for the application requirements, they include the following:

• The candidate must submit one poem only;
• The poem must be written in classical Arabic composition following the rules (metrics) of classical poetry (called “vertical” – shi’r ‘amûdi) or free verse (shi’r hurr);
• The poem must be composed of at least 20 lines (classical verse) or 30 lines (free verse) respecting the unit of measure (taf’îla);
• The subject of the poem must be related to women, their concerns, hopes, and aspirations;
• The poem must be original and unpublished and must not have been awarded a prize before or pending participation in other competitions;

The poems must be sent to ICESCO in “Word” or “Pdf” format along with the candidate’s CV, before July 30^th, 2021, to this email address: arabic@icesco.org. The names of the winners will be announced through the ICESCO website and official letters to the winners.

     Two winners from Senegal and Nigeria received yesterday December 8, 2020, the “ICESCO Bayan Award” for Creative Expression in the Arabic Language at the headquarters of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) in Rabat.

The winners are Abdullah Gay, from Senegal, student at Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania in Morocco, and Redwan Abu Midi Akanbe, Nigeria, student at Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Institute for Traditional Education Morocco. Each winner received USD2,000 in prize money.

Given the COVID-19-related exceptional circumstances, a face-to-face award ceremony to honor all winners proved challenging. ICESCO began transferring the prize money to remaining winners from different categories, age groups, and countries. The winners are:

• Wan Massina Al Muwaiheb Bin Massoudin, Madrasah Irsyad Zuhri Al Islamiah, Republic of Singapore. (Children category)

• Abdul Hadi Muayad bin Haji Azrul, Al-Falaah School, Sultanate of Brunei. (Children category)

• Nasir Sabi, Osman Rijovi School in Visoko, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Boys and girls category)

• Adeeba Wei Sani, Institute of Religious Missions in Galle, Thailand. (Boys and girls category)

• Riaz Subacic, Faculty of Islamic Studies – University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Youth)

• Ko Abdullah Hakim bin Ko Solong, Malaysia University of Science, Malaysia. (Youth)

The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) announced the launch of its new “Bayan” Award for Creative Expression in Arabic, as part of “ICESCO Digital Home” and in line with its education initiative, “Learn and Master Arabic at Home”.

The Award will reward winners from the three age categories: youth (US$ 2000); teens (US$ 1500) and children (US$ 1000).

For its part, ICESCO stated that the Award aims to promote students’ creative productivity in Arabic during lockdown; highlight the universality of Arabic; support the continuity of the learning process; ensure complementarities between the educational and cultural dimensions; and catalyse self-development of linguistic skills through creative writing and verbal expression.

The Award covers creative expression where the student records his pronunciation and diction on a video based on a text he/she wrote in standard Arabic specifically for this contest (verse/prose, article, short story). The nominated works should work under the following themes: distance learning; family in the time of lockdown; hygiene and health; necessity is the mother of innovation; solidarity during the state of emergency; the world post-covid-19; investing time during lockdown; and communication in the time of social distancing.

To be nominated for the Award, the following criteria should be met:

-The candidate must be a student from a non-Arab country, whose first language is not Arabic;

-The work must be submitted through the student’s educational institution;

-The educational institution must only send one outstanding work for each category;

-Nominations received from Member States must be submitted through the National Commissions and competent parties;

-The video must not exceed 3 minutes in length for children, 4 minutes for teens, and 5 minutes for young people;

-The video must not have been published or submitted to another competition before;

-The nomination file must include the video, the text written by the student and the nomination form duly filled in. The form is available at:

http://www.icesco.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Nomination-Form-ICESCO-Bayan-Award.pdf

Nominations must be sent prior to 31 May 2020 to the following e-mail: bayanaward@icesco.org

ICESCO also pointed out that a jury will be tasked with examining nomination files and selecting winners who will be announced on ICESCO’s website via official letters to the competent parties. In addition to the monetary reward, the winners will be given certificates at a ceremony to be held after the end of lockdown.

It is worth mentioning that ICESCO has launched, through its Center of Arabic for non-Arabic Speakers, the initiative “Learn Arabic, Master it at Home”, in cooperation with “Granada Editions” and the “Saudi Electronic University” to allow free access to educational digital contents by non-Arabic speaking students from all over the world.