Under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development , the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development kick starts the Charity Book Fairs tomorrow in malls and in cultural centers across the UAE and will last until 21st of March. This initiative comes as a culmination of the Book Bank initiative featuring thousands of books received from individuals, publishing houses, public and private institutions in the country, and releases from the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development. On his part, Ahmed Al Haddabi, Director of the Libraries Department at the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development and the Supervisor of the Charity Book Fair, said that the main objective of this initiative is to strengthen the roles of all members of the society in being part of the future knowledge making system and to raise the level of community cultural and knowledge awareness. He added that the initiative also focuses on facilitating and creating channels for knowledge exchange among members of the society and promoting the spirit of cultural and knowledge volunteering. Al Haddabi added that books in the charity book fair will cover the following fields; strengthening the national identity, human development, heritage, theater, children’s books, poetry and novels, in addition to releases in English language. Al Haddabi added that the Ministry’s aim behind the implementation of this initiative in the month of reading is to raise the level of community awareness about knowledge contributions benefiting all segments of society. In addition to the promotion of the roles of members of the community to become part of the knowledge industry by creating channels for knowledge exchange among members of society, and to promote the spirit of cultural volunteerism. He added the “Book Bank” initiative put forward by the Ministry at the beginning of the month of reading will continue throughout 2017 to receive more participations from individuals to organise similar kinds of exhibitions more often. Al Haddabi stressed that all the books displayed in the charity book fair are available to community members in return of money donations to be put in UAE Red Crescent donation boxes. He further stated “We have communicated with the Red Crescent Authority of UAE to provide donation boxes during the days of exhibitions to provide an opportunity for the public to support knowledge charitable programs and projects coinciding with the year of goodness 2017. Al Haddabi explained that this is the Ministry’s first attempt in organizing charity exhibitions displaying books, to make knowledge available at nominal prices for all segments of society and achieving the main objective of the month of reading. Haddabi further explained that children, heritage and human development books were the most popular in the first day, which draws attention to the importance of such topics. The exhibition was a good opportunity to tell the public more about the Ministry’s book related initiatives such as the “Smart Library” available to more than 85 thousand employees of Federal institutions and bodies in the UAE, in addition to the “Digital Library” and the “National Encyclopedia ” available to the public. On the other hand, a wide range of visitors to the exhibition in Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Ras Al Khaima, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah, the Western Region, Dibba and Masafi expressed their appreciation for organizing such an exhibition which made available hundreds of important books in various branches of knowledge at nominal prices.