“Our Life in the UAE”: A Community Initiative Turned Into Creative Stories

Dubai, UAE,11 July 2025

As part of the "Our Life in the UAE" community initiative, launched by His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library organised a creative writing workshop titled "Our Life in the UAE". Presented by journalist and writer Ranim Al-Basha, the workshop was attended by creative writing enthusiasts.

The workshop aimed to inspire participants with ways to humanise their experiences in the UAE, while providing them with the tools to write personal, documentary texts that are grounded in reality, celebrate the details of daily life, and contribute to highlighting the values ​​of diversity, tolerance, and belonging.

Day one of the workshop focused on the theoretical side, addressing autobiographical narrative writing and the importance of transforming personal experiences into literary texts with a human element. It also reviewed the elements of creative writing, the structure of the idea, the processing style, and key challenges that face writers in expressing their experiences.

Day two was dedicated to the workshop’s practical application. During the workshop, Al-Basha asked the participants to write short stories inspired by their experiences in the UAE and discuss them in an interactive environment. She provided individual feedback to each participant, focusing on narrative style, choice of language, use of time structure, and the story’s main idea. She also encouraged participants to rewrite and develop their stories to achieve a literary level that clearly and authentically reflects their own voices.

"Our Life in the UAE" initiative is an open invitation to those living in the UAE—citizens and residents of all ages—to express their experiences in literary form, whether through short stories, memoirs, articles, or poetry, in both Arabic and English. The initiative aims to document human stories, compile them into published books, and invest them in future cultural and artistic works that express the spirit of the UAE and its societal values.

At the end of the workshop, attendees expressed their appreciation for the opportunity provided by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library to discover themselves through writing. They emphasised the importance of continuing such initiatives that combine creativity with documentation and enhance the presence of individual experiences in the overall national narrative.

This workshop is part of a series organised by the library's Creative Writing Program, which aims to build a community of new writers, revive self-narration, and offer literary platforms that reflect the richness and diversity of the UAE, with all its stories and voices.