00:00Am I going to lose my mother tongue language, which is the Arabic language that my holy book is written with it? I will not.
00:07I feel like language is one of the only things we have left and that we need to protect it at all costs.
00:12I see it as a part of my identity to know Arabic.
00:19My parents tried their best to start me with Arabic so I would be used to it.
00:23You know it's harder to learn a language if you're older.
00:26That's why they were trying to get me to know Arabic more.
00:29So at home it would all be Arabic and at school it would be English.
00:32That way I was getting both of each world.
00:35My father and mother, they told me to start it and it was actually an opportunity to read in Arabic
00:45because I don't usually read in Arabic. I read in Norwegian or English.
00:48I came to Australia in 2003. It was a bit difficult for me to learn the English language
00:54and a few years I started learning that language.
00:57After learning it I started thinking, am I going to lose my mother tongue language, which is the Arabic language
01:04that my holy book is written with it? I will not. I will not allow for this to happen.
01:09And so I started learning the Arabic language.
01:12My sister participated in this challenge last year.
01:15She actually told me, what about we participate together?
01:18But I said I didn't want to because I didn't believe in my abilities
01:22and I thought that I was not ready for it.
01:24But then after she won, she got first place in Australia
01:27and she also got third place around the other countries.
01:31She gave me, I really wanted to do it. She inspired me.
01:35I'm kind of a shy person but then I felt a little more confident
01:39and I felt very happy to meet people like me from foreign countries
01:43that really can't speak Arabic with any other person.
01:47I see it as a part of my identity to know Arabic and know my origins
01:52and I see a lot of people, Arabic people who don't actually know the language
01:58and I don't want to be like that.
02:01I feel like language is one of the only things you have left
02:04and that we need to protect it at all costs because it could disappear
02:08because people could forget about it.
02:11The initiative is absolutely amazing and I can tell you from my current judgment
02:18it's like a motivation for these students who don't often talk in Arabic
02:24in their countries like say in Sweden, Germany, United States, Holland.
02:28It motivated them to start reading and doing the summaries
02:33and discuss the books with their parents and then get ready for this.
02:36It's a very important initiative for these kids to practice their reading.
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