ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Erbil Reading Festival held at Shanidar Park on Saturday aimed to promote reading and education across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

“We want the youth in the region to come together to encourage each other to read and improve their education,” event organizer Mohammed Kareem Jasim, who is from Diyala, Iraq, told Rudaw English.

The festival, supported by the Iraq Ministry of Education, provided 5,000 books to give away, covering topics on everything from literature to science to medicine, available in Kurdish, Arabic and English. 

All of the books were donated by universities, bookstores and libraries with the help of 30 volunteers working to collect and distribute them at the festival.

A series of lectures on social awareness, musical performances, an art exhibition and poetry readings were also held.

Jalal Abdalla, an attorney and author from Syrian Kurdistan, who wrote ‘The Hundred Year War in Syria,” was invited to read an excerpt from his book.

By encouraging reading and education in the region, Abdalla said he hopes to one day see a new Middle East living in peace without war and violence within the next 20 years.

Several information booths were also set up by charities, businesses and organizations to promote health, women’s protection and human rights as well as providing free basic medical checks.

Karokh Fadhil, project coordinator with the Al Mesalla organization, who had a booth selling handicrafts made by religious and ethnic minorities in the region, said his organization was there to promote peaceful coexistence in the Kurdistan Region.

Fadhil believes this can be achieved through reading and researching about minorities and the peoples of Kurdistan so that negative ideas will not affect people’s way of thinking.

“It is important that people know about each other before they can judge each other,” he said.

The Erbil Reading Festival at Shanidar Park in Erbil finishes at 8 p.m. on Saturday.