Al Ain Colleges of Technology honors female students participating in the oral heritage preservation project
Al Ain, October 21 / WAM / The Higher Colleges of Technology in the city of Al Ain organized a ceremony to honor the female students of the Education Program participating in the project to preserve the Emirati oral heritage, which aimed to develop Arabic language skills, the art of narration, and digital innovation.
The ceremony was held under the patronage and presence of Sheikha Dr. Shamma bint Mohammed bin Khalid Al Nahyan, who gave a speech in which she emphasized the pivotal role of female students in preserving heritage and transmitting it from the generation of grandparents and parents to future generations, noting that the project succeeded in writing and converting more than 50 original Arab stories inspired by Emirati culture into a digital format using artificial intelligence tools.
She stressed the importance of reading alongside the story, pointing out that the story preserves identity, and reading expands the horizon, calling on the students to allocate even a small part of their time to reading away from mobile device screens, stressing that this contributes to reducing stress by 60%, and opens the mind to new energy.
Sheikha Dr. Shamma Mohammed Khaled Al Nahyan stressed that female students are not just users of technology, but rather they are makers of meaning, builders of thought and an integral part of the UAE’s civilization. They are the ones who make artificial intelligence more humane, the past a compass for the future, and the ones who make reading fuel for awareness.
For her part, Professor Halima Hamad, lecturer in the Education Program and academic supervisor of the project, said that its development took place within the course of training teachers to teach the Arabic language. The students worked on documenting Emirati oral stories through meetings with the elderly, then converting them into children’s tales in Arabic, and using artificial intelligence tools to convert them into an interactive digital format.
The project contributes to enabling future teachers to use storytelling as an educational tool that links language, culture, and technology.
Hamad added that the project’s vision is to preserve the Emirati cultural identity by enhancing children’s Arabic language skills and connecting them to their cultural roots through stories. The project was linked to another course focusing on bilingualism and reading, through the students translating stories into English and designing educational activities to support them.
She explained that the students have read stories to children in a number of schools, nurseries, and summer camps in the city of Al Ain, and will continue this work by writing more stories and reading them in various educational institutions, pointing out that there is a future plan to create a digital platform that will host these stories and allow them to be widely used in society.
The project coincides with the Year of Community in the Emirates by enhancing community cohesion, supporting the preservation of cultural heritage, and encouraging cooperation among community members.
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