‘Let the world know Bahrainis are happy’

“We want to send this message to the whole world that Bahrainis are happy, and we are an integrated nation”, says Governor of Capital Governorate Shaikh Hesham bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa.

He was speaking to DT News on the sidelines of an award-giving ceremony arranged by the Capital Governorate at Officers Club at Gudaibiya yesterday.  

Shaikh Hesham said that the key idea behind the awards ceremony was to engage the people in such a way that they could get the real pleasure of “our National Day” and feel themselves truly connected to the authorities. 

He said that they would love to dedicate this to everyone who participated in the Beautiful Manama.

“I hope, the next year it will be better, bigger and more people will join us,” says Shaikh Hesham.

He thanked all the partners and competitors and said that everyone who participated was a winner. He said that he was pleased to give away awards to the winners of instagram competition as well as the ‘Best- decorated Building’ in the government and private sectors.

He said that he wanted to thank the Bahrain Islamic Bank and also all the newspapers for their coverage. “This shows their interest and keenness and their loyalty to the country,” he added.  

The award-giving ceremony was held to honour the winners of the two types of competitions. The main competition was to have the ‘Best- decorated Building’ on the National Day of Bahrain and there were three categories for this award – public sector, private sector and the education sector.

For the public sector category, Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) got the first prize, while the Ministry of Finance and the Officers Club stood at the second and third positions respectively.

For the private sector, Ritz Carlton Hotel won the first prize while Viva and the Ahli United Bank received the second and third prizes respectively. 

There were two winners from the education sector as well. Applied Science University got the first position while Al Rashid School came second.

There was another competition for the citizen’s category in which everyone was able to take part in the competition simply by taking the photos and then uploading them on the website. 

And the winners were awarded on the basis of the likes clicks by the people. The photo which got the maximum likes was given the best award.

In the citizens category, Jawaher Zakariya got the first prize while Fatema Ahmed and Mariam Abdul Nabi received the second and third prizes respectively. 

The names of the remaining winners are Nouf Alatawi (4th), Zahra Ahmed (5th), Fajar Alrees (6th), Gousi Alasheeb (7th), Isa Abdul Jalil (8th), Sharifa Jalal (9th) and Hadeel Alhasan (10th).

DT News and Alayam were also given awards in recognition of their better coverage. 

Capital Municipal Council Chairman Mohamed Ali Alkhozaae said that they were feeling proud to have such healthy competitions as part of the National Day celebrations.

“It is also a sort of an awareness campaign to make people learn how to be closer and more connected to the authorities in the governments,” says Alkhozaae.

“This year, more people participated as compared to the last year and more enthusiasm was also observed among the participants.”

He said that the main purpose of the programme was to create a strong link between the public and the government authorities.

Strategic Planning and Projects Management Head Yusuf Lori said that it showed how the private and public sectors could integrate and celebrate their National Day together and express their true feelings towards the Kingdom and His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on this great occasion.

Lori said that this was not the first time that the Capital Governorate was organising such competitions on the National Day. He said that on the other hand it was a continued effort on the part of the Capital Governorate to arrange such programmes.

 He said that they would like to thank all those people who put their efforts to show the real beauty of Bahrain.

Caption : Shaikh Hesham with the participants