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RAMADAN CHAMPIONSHIP
Qatar Airways wins transportation
sector's Padel tournament title
THE PENINSULA — DOHA
Q atar Airways team beat
MoT team 3-0 to clinch
the second edition of the
Minister of Transport Ramadan
Padel Championship Cup.
The team was crowned by
Minister of Transport H E Jassim
Saif Ahmed Al Sulaiti after their
win.
The QA team cruised to
victory at the tourney held at
Padel-In Aspire Zone amid a
large fan attendance.
The event was attended by
Qatar Airways Group Chief
Executive, H E Akbar Al Baker,
President of Ashghal and Mow-
asalat (Karwa) Chairman Dr.
Eng. Saad bin Ahmad Al
WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY
MoPH, partners raise awareness on supporting people with autism
QNA — DOHA
Q atar is marking World
Autism Awareness Day,
which is being observed
globally today, under the slogan
‘Transformation: Toward a
Neuro-Inclusive World for All.’
On this occasion, the Min-
istry of Public Health (MoPH),
in cooperation with the Ministry
of Education and Higher Edu-
cation, Hamad Medical Corpo-
ration (HMC), Qatar Foundation,
and Shafallah Center launched
an awareness campaign aimed
at educating families and
parents on the best ways to
communicate with their loved
ones with an autism spectrum
disorder.
Qatar played an important
role in raising awareness of
autism spectrum disorder at the
international level. In 2007, H
H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser
supported the campaign that
called for designating a day for
marking World Autism
Awareness Day during the 62nd
This year’s
championship featured
36 teams from the
MOT, Qatar Rail,
QCAA, QA, Mowasalat
(Karwa), Mwani Qatar,
QTerminals, Milaha
and Qatar Aeronautical
Academy.
Muhannadi, Dir. Gen. of the
Qatar Aeronautical Academy
Sheikh Jabor bin Hamad Al
Thani, Mwani Qatar’s CEO Capt.
Abdulla Mohamed Al Khanji,
Mowasalat (Kawa) CEO Fahad
Saad Al Qahtani, GCEO of
session of the United Nations
General Assembly, which was
approved unanimously by all
UN member states.
In addition to designating
the second of April as World
Autism Awareness Day, the res-
olution encouraged member
states to take the necessary
measures to raise awareness
about autism in their
communities.
As part of the awareness
campaign to mark World
Autism Awareness Day, the
Ministry organises a virtual
training program to rehabilitate
families on proper ways to deal
with children and adults and
ways to develop life skills and
effective communication, espe-
cially families of individuals
who have learning difficulties,
autism, behavioural problems,
speech delay or school
problems.
Also, the Ministry organizes,
in cooperation with the Al Maha
Pediatric Specialized Care
Center, a training program to
QTerminals Neville Bissett,
Interim PCEO at Milaha
Mohammed Swidan, and
several officials from the MOT
and transportation industry.
Al Sulaiti appreciated the
tournament sponsors, Mwani
Qatar and QTerminals as
Official Sponsors, and QA as
Gold Sponsor for partnering
with the event.
“We are so happy for a suc-
cessful second edition of the
Minister of Transport Ramadan
Padel Championship Cup, par-
ticularly as this tournament
comes in response to staff
desire at entities working in the
transportation sector,” said
Lolan Abdelaziz Al Jassim,
Public Relations and Commu-
In 2007, H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser supported
the campaign that called for designating a
World Autism Awareness Day during the 62nd
UN General Assembly, which was approved
unanimously by all UN member states.
raise the efficiency of health
practitioners specialised in
dealing with individuals with an
autism spectrum disorder.
HMC is organising today
awareness activities and recre-
ational activities for children
with autism spectrum disorder
and their families at Al Maha
Pediatric Specialized Care
Center and Al Wakra Hospital
to provide them with the nec-
essary support and bring joy and
happiness to their souls. These
events provide an opportunity
for families to exchange expe-
riences, which will have a great
impact on building communi-
cation networks between
parents and specialists. Also,
HMC participates in global
Minister of Transport H E Jassim Saif Ahmed Al Sulaiti (second left) and Qatar Airways Group Chief
Executive H E Akbar Al Baker (second right) pose with the winning team during the second edition
of the Minister of Transport Ramadan Padel Championship Cup 2023 at Padel-In Aspire Zone.
nication Director at MOT.
“We are looking forward to
organising another professional
championship next year in
solidarity with people with
autism spectrum disorder by
lighting its multi-story parking
building in blue.
The program for families,
organized by the MoPH, aims
to train all families of people
with developmental disorders.
The program is designed to
provide participants with the
basic knowledge and skills nec-
essary to apply learning prin-
ciples and strategies and
analyze and modify children’s
behavior.
The objectives of the
training program include iden-
tifying developmental dis-
orders and practices with sci-
entific evidence, the most
important principles, laws, and
strategies for analyzing and
modifying children’s behavior,
understanding them and their
uses, applying methods for
analyzing children’s behavior
according to the basic analysis
unit, identifying mechanisms
for measuring behavior by
correct measurement methods
to make sound educational
NU-Q Dean’s Global Forum
guest examines future of
academic publishing
THE PENINSULA — DOHA
G A
ita Manaktala, editorial
director of the MIT Press,
examined the current
state of the publishing industry
and the trends shaping its
future at the latest Dean’s
Global Forum at Northwestern
University in Qatar.
Joining Northwestern Qatar
Dean and CEO Marwan M
Kraidy in a conversation on the
state of publishing and her
career in the publishing
industry, Manaktala discussed
the ways university presses are
responding to the digital evo-
lution and how economics and
globalization are shaping the
future of the field and
knowledge production across
digital media and communi-
cation fields.
Manaktala began the con-
versation by highlighting the
importance of the monograph
and the present-day challenges
it faces amid the lack of funding
models. “It [the monograph] is
languishing, not for lack of
impact or quality or importance
or significance, [but] for lack of
a business model to support it,”
noted Manaktala. “The model
used to be that academic
libraries would buy mono-
graphs, and university presses
would expect to sell 1000,
which was enough to cover the
cost of publishing monographs.
Now, [only] 200-300 copies
are the norm for monograph
sales, and that does not cover
the cost of publishing them.”
To overcome the current
lack of sustainable funding,
Manaktala said MIT Press and
university presses are adopting
a funded open-access model
that relies on library
SUNDAY 2 APRIL 2023
conjunction with Qatar Rail,”
she added.
This year’s championship
featured 36 teams from the
decisions, and evaluating the
child’s behavior in direct and
indirect ways, as a prelude to
building procedures aimed at
modifying the child’s behavior.
Also, the program’s objec-
tives contain analyzing tasks
and skills for their basic parts
to facilitate the process of
training and learning for
children, in addition to identi-
fying ways and methods to
increase students motivation
and teach them new skills, and
applying the intensive separate
attempts protocol to train
children to acquire various
skills (cognitive, linguistic,
motor, etc) quickly and easily.
At the end of the training
program, presented by
Mahmoud Al Sheyab, founder
and general manager of the
ABA Resources foundation,
which specializes in providing
solutions for individuals with
autism spectrum disorder, par-
ticipants will receive a special
certificate if they achieve the
program criteria, which is
attending 80 percent of the
program work and active par-
ticipation during the
lectures.
The training program for
health practitioners reviews
many important points, partic-
ularly ways to diagnose autism
spectrum disorder, identify the
individual strengths of the
subscriptions to fund publishing
costs. “In the model that we
have come up with, academic
libraries are tipping in some
additional money to support
open access because that is
consistent with their values as
well as our mission to dissem-
inate the best quality ideas,”
said Manaktala. “It suggests a
way forward, where libraries
are helping to fund the pro-
duction of knowledge.”
While digital technologies
have provided university
presses with new ways to fund
their publishing costs, Mana-
ktala underlined the impor-
tance and value of printed
books in the 21st century. “The
codex needs to be protected
and valued,” she emphasised.
“It continues to be a very sig-
nificant technology, a very con-
venient way to read, and
perhaps the most enduring
medium of all to absorb long-
form arguments and ideas that
need to persist in time,” added
Manaktala.
Manaktala went on to
discuss the growing interest in
examining the notion of the
digital among the academic
community and how university
presses are prioritising origi-
nality while remaining focused
on amplifying ideas that are
breaking new grounds and cre-
ating new knowledge. “We
don’t just trust our own sense
of it; we have a faculty editorial
board that weighs in on some
of what we published on eve-
rything, and they, too, bring us
skeptical eyes to those kinds of
claims,” said Manaktala, who
also highlighted the importance
of conformity and reframing in
educating new audiences about
existing ideas.
MOT, Qatar Rail, QCAA, QA,
Mowasalat (Karwa), Mwani
Qatar, QTerminals, Milaha and
Qatar Aeronautical Academy.
person with autism, treatment
strategies, behavioral compe-
tence, individualized education
plan (IEP), specific intervention,
teaching strategies on autism,
and the evaluation tools used
to measure progress.
The program gives autism
professionals access to 14 hours
of continuing education (CE)
self-paced online training at
any time of the day from any-
where in the world.
The training modules for
health practitioners include
speaker biography, module
introduction, video presen-
tation, presentation notes, and
knowledge check to ensure
proficiency.
After training is completed,
the health practitioner receives
a study guide to prepare for the
final online proficiency test.
Practitioners who complete
one of the certificate programs
available in training also obtain
an internationally recognized
professional accreditation.
Autism is a lifelong con-
dition that affects how an indi-
vidual communicates and
interacts with others and the
world. The term “autism
spectrum” is used to describe
this condition because indi-
viduals affected are affected in
different ways and to varying
degrees, and in most cases the
cause is unknown.
Qatar has made
strides in care for
people with
autism: Expert
QNA — DOHA
l Shafallah Center for
Persons with Disability
is celebrating the
World Autism Awareness
Day, which falls on April 2 of
each year, under the theme
‘Transformation: Toward a
Neuro-Inclusive World for
All.’
Executive Director of Al
Shafallah Center Laalei
Abualfain said in remarks on
the occasion that marking the
World Autism Awareness
Day is an opportunity to shed
light on the strides made by
Qatar in the area of care for
people with autism spectrum
disorder, and working to
achieve more successes in
integrating and caring for this
important group of society.
She pointed out that this
year’s theme came to confirm
the need to move away from
the treatment narratives for
people with autism, and to
focus on accepting and sup-
porting them, ensuring their
involvement and defending
their rights, indicating that
the new narrative enables
people with autism to be fully
integrated as valuable
members of their families
and communities.
Abualfain noted that the
autism department at the
center provides various edu-
cational, rehabilitative and
skill services to its members
based on a set of curricula
that rely on scientific evi-
dence. She lauded the State’s
attention to people with dis-
abilities, including those with
autism, as this was evident in
the launch of the National
Autism Plan.