JEDDAH, 14 February 2007 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will inaugurate today the Janadriya Heritage and Culture Festival, the largest annual cultural event in the Kingdom. A large number of Saudi and foreign dignitaries will attend the opening that includes a 40-minute operetta titled “The Land of Love and Peace.”
Five children with special needs will also recite a poem entitled “The King: The Human” during the opening of the festival.
The festival will also kick off with a camel race, which has become popular at national and regional levels, said Abdul Rahman Al-Subeit, chairman of the organizing committee and undersecretary at the National Guard. More than 500 contestants from within and outside Saudi Arabia will take part.
The race will be held in six rounds with the 20km first round taking place on the opening day, he said. The second round will be held on Saturday, third and fourth on Sunday and the last two rounds on Monday. “We have made all arrangements for the race including installation of cameras at the finishing point.”
The cultural extravaganza, organized by the National Guard, aims at highlighting Saudi Arabia’s noble culture and heritage. Heritage models of different regions have been established in Janadriya village north of Riyadh. Traditional handicrafts and equipment used by people in olden days are also displayed.
The festival, which started in 1985, is the brainchild of King Abdullah. Every year the festival gives an award, the King Abdul Aziz Medal of the First Order, to an outstanding Saudi cultural personality. Abdullah Abdul Jabbar, a well-known Saudi man of letters from Makkah, won the award last year.
The programs include an Aradha sword dance, a book show with the participation of a large number of publishers, a Qur’an and Hadith contest for boys and girls, performance of folklore troupes from the Kingdom’s different regions, an exhibition of Saudi and Gulf artists, dramas, lectures on Islam and moderation, and the investment climate in Saudi Arabia, as well as a seminar on the need for confronting the idea of clash of civilizations.
In the past 21 years, it has hosted more than 125 seminars in addition to 45 lectures on regional and international topics and 40 poetry sessions with the participation of major figures. Women play an active role in the festival with a variety of programs, but they are not allowed to mix with men.
The children with special needs that will be reciting the poem praising the king are from the Jeddah’s Prince Abdul Majeed ibn Abdul Aziz Center for Children With Special Needs. The children are between the ages of seven and ten.
“The children who are able to speak will recite the poem while the translator, Al-Baraa Hijji, will translate it into sign language,” said Elham Harasani, director of the center. “He studied sign language when he was a primary school student in the UK where they teach the language as a school subject,” she said.
Elham said that the children have various talents. Some of them have the ability to memorize, paint, and write poetry.
“This will build their confidence,” she said. “They will be able to express themselves and show that they are talented and confident to mix and deal with people despite their handicap.”
As the center deals with children until the age of 10, Elham and her colleagues thought that they must follow up with them after that age. “We got the permission from the king to establish a club for both genders over the age of 10 where they can practice different events ranging from art to sports,” Elham added.
