Winners of AHSF’s Creativity Award for Children, Youth announced

AMMAN — The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (AHSF) on Thursday announced the winners of the 17th session of the Creativity Award for Children and Youth “Abde’”, which aims to “formulate strong tendency for creativity and knowledge”.

This award is dedicated for children and youth in the literary, technical, scientific innovation and performance fields, according to the AHSF website

It gears towards “promoting a culture of creativity, through the discovery of talented and distinguished children and youth at an early stage”.

The award covers four fields, including literary creativity, artistic creativity, performance art and scientific innovation. The award was established in 1988, for children between the ages of eight and 18, with the aim to encourage creative potential and children’s brain development, according to organisers.

During the event, AHSF’s CEO Valentina Kassisieh said: “AHSF’s Creativity Award for Children and Youth is one of the awards that invest in creative children, through workshops and specialised training courses, to further build their capacities.”

“This year was remarkably hard for us and the children, due to the pandemic,” Kassisieh said, adding that despite the recurrent lockdowns, school closures and the challenges in reaching the children, the participation in 2020’s 17th session was “stronger and more mature” when compared with the previous session.

About 745 children participated, while 207 participants were qualified, Kassisieh noted, adding that the award is supervised by a higher committee composed of a president and members with experience and competence in the fields of “Abde’”.

The foundation’s CEO said that the committee chose 23 winners who have already completed their training, conducted virtually and face to face, noting that “having many different forms of virtual training, in order to cover the four fields, was a new experience”.

The foundation held 18 workshops in various fields for those who were qualified. There were 48 participants in the field of drawing, 12 participants in the Arabic calligraphy field, 10 participants in the dancing field, 30 participants in the music field, and 14 and 33 in the poetry and essay fields, respectively, in addition to the scientific field, which included five participants.