The Arab Thought Foundation

An independent international civil institution, that has no pertinence with political, partisan, or sectarian affiliations. Since its inception in the year 2000 at the initiative of His Royal Highness Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, and with the support of a constellation of intellectuals, money-holders and businessmen who believed in the message of enlightenment and development that it undertook, and the responsible freedom approach it adopted, the Foundation has been committed to promoting the Arabic language and culture, and calling for Arab solidarity under the inclusive Arab identity, which embraces the richness of diversity and plurality, and upholds the values of dialogue and openness to the world's languages and cultures.

The Foundation has sought to spread knowledge, stimulate creativity and innovation, as well as to develop structures and mindsets, empower youth, and achieve comprehensive sustainable development goals, through the initiatives and pioneering projects, reports, programs, books, conferences, and forums it launched. 

In the context of its contribution to intellectual, cultural, and educational development, the Foundation has adopted an approach of partnership, cooperation and integration with organizations, institutions, research centers and relevant studies.

Project Arabi 21

The Arab Thought Foundation paid special attention to the reform of educational sector and its development through its project “Arabi 21”. 

The vision of the "Arabi 21" project is to prepare an Arab person to think in the Arabic language and communicate using it to learn, work and live according to the requirements of all aspects of life, and to be able to preserve their identity. The main objective of the project is to contribute to the improvement and modernization of the learning and teaching methods of the Arabic language.

The project targets students in all stages of education. And in some aspects, it targets Arab and foreign publishing houses that print publications in the Arabic language, as well as authors and illustrators of Arab children's literature books, educational and cultural institutions and associations concerned with encouraging reading, educators in all education levels, and librarians.

The project includes the following main activities: 

• Designing an early reading assessment tool in Arabic “Mubakker”. 

• Electronic directory for classified books. 

• “Short story with their pens” competition. 

• “Kitabi” award. 

• Education conference. 

Goals: 

1. Organizing several educational conferences on topics related to enhancing the use of the Arabic language.
2. Publishing several interactive videos on best educational practices and other topics of interest to teachers and academics
3. Work on designing an exam to test the Arab student's capabilities in the Arabic language based on international standards. 
4. Launching several initiatives to encourage children and adolescents to read and write in the Arabic language.
5. Organizing "Kitabi Award" to select the best books written by children and teenagers in the Arabic language.  
6. Formulating and adopting appropriate standards related to both the Arabic language curricula and the classification of children's literature books.
7. Urging the largest number of Arab and international publishing houses to use Hanada Taha and Arabi 21 criteria to classify children's literature books that they publish. 
8. Creating a website that includes an online directory of children's books classified according to reading level and based on internationally approved classification standards, where the user can read book summaries and choose the appropriate ones.

For more information about Arabi 21: https://arabthought.org/ar/arabi21/index