Emirates Post celebrated World Post Day with an awards ceremony in which the UAE winners of the UPU International Letter Writing Competition were honoured. Fittingly, the event was held at the Etihad Museum, which chronicles the birth of the UAE. Since 1969, World Post Day has been celebrated annually on 09 October in more than 150 countries worldwide to commemorate the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874, and this year’s event marked two special milestones – both the Universal Postal Union’s 145^th anniversary and 50 years since the declaration of World Post Day,

After a welcome reception, guests were given a tour of the museum before being shown an animated video, highlighting the Journey of Postal Services through stamps from before unification up until today. The event culminated in an awards ceremony in the auditorium where the winners were announced and presented with their prizes.

Speaking at the event, His Excellency Abdulla M. Alashram, Acting Group CEO of Emirates Post Group said, “World Post Day marks the founding of the United Postal Union and, we are excited to celebrate the pivotal role it plays in international postal affairs at the Etihad Museum.”

He added, “Emirates Post has been a proud member of UPU since joining in 1973, two years after the unification of the UAE, which subsequently led to the unification of the postal services within the Emirates. This year’s theme ‘Delivering Development’ captures the UPU’s continuous efforts to find new and innovative ways to deliver value to the international postal network and, given the current challenges within the industry, together we are committed to developing strategies to face the future and raise the standards of the postal industry for employees and the communities in which we operate.”

Commenting on the competition Obaid M. Al Qatami, Acting Chief Commercial Officer, Emirates Post said, “The UPU Letter Writing Competition is a great initiative, which preserves the art of hand-writing and encourages children to express their creativity through the written word. I am extremely pleased that, in a digital age, letter writing is still being practiced by the younger generation to such a high standard. This year’s theme was to write about one’s heroes, which makes it all the more fitting that today’s event is being hosted at the Etihad Museum amongst our heroes the Founding Fathers. On behalf of Emirates Post, I would like to thank everyone who entered and congratulate our winners.”

Established in 1971, the long-running competition invites children up to age 15 years to write letters on a given theme. This year, young writers were tasked with writing a letter about their heroes.  There were over 100 submissions, the majority of which were in Arabic and the overall UAE winner was Shamma Saeed al-Memari a student from Al Zuhour Private School whose Arabic letter was UAE’s submission to the international level competition at UPU headquarters in Bern. Second and third prize were awarded to Yousif Mohammad Sorour from Sharjah International Private School and Shaden Maher al-Hawwari from Al Manara Private School respectively.