It feels warm, you can't find words. It's the first time we win a prize for what we do, and we feel that it's appreciated. So there are many emotions, says Mohammed Albomnaijl.
He and Abdullah Al-Naakh started the non-profit organization Read & Exercise at Klocket Kunskapens Hus in Norrköping in 2023. They wanted to engage young people, and initially turned to 10-13 year olds, a target group few reading promoters choose, according to Mohammed Albomnaijl.
People think it's already too late but they are still children and it's still possible to change their mentality and way of thinking. So when we started, we looked for those who have it tough in school and worked with them, he says.
Trains and reads
Through collaboration with leisure centers and local entrepreneurs, the duo now reaches young people all over Norrköping. The setup is that the local sports movement holds training sessions – and during the same meeting, participants read and discuss books together.
A big part of why we started this is that when we were their age, we had it pretty tough, we have an immigrant background and our parents are not so good with the language, says Mohammed Albomnaijl, who tells that he has gradually started to love reading.
Reading makes you understand other people better and it gives a "thousand times better" vocabulary, he emphasizes. The group looks up words they don't understand together.
Community
Nowadays, not only the reading-averse participate, but all kinds of young people between the ages of 10 and 20. Even those who have it easy in school, tells Mohammed Albomnaijl.
Someone who has it really good in school can still have it tough at home and not have the community they are entitled to. Everyone is entitled to a community.
Organization Read & Exercise is named Reader Promoter of the Year by author Pascal Engman, whose foundation for the fifth time awards the prize – a scholarship of 25,000 kronor.
Pascal Engman is an author whose books have been translated into about twenty languages. He often writes about class and gang crime.
He founded the reading foundation in 2020 after lecturing at a school in front of a few hundred high school students, where only one raised their hand in response to the question of how many had read a book.
