Vodafone held an awards ceremony yesterday to honour the winners of its third literary competition.  
The competition was launched on December 5, 2015, inspired by the theme of last year’s Qatar National Day celebrations, “Our help carries joy to the aggrieved” - a verse that comes from a poem written by Qatar’s founder Sheikh Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani.
Vodafone Qatar COO Mohamed al-Sadah, director of external affairs Mohamed al-Yami and the competition’s lead judge, Dr Fatima al-Suwaidi, handed over the trophies and certificates to the winners in addition to appreciation mementos to those who ensured that the initiative was a success.
In the awards ceremony’s opening note, al-Yami said: “Now in its third year, Vodafone’s literary competition has undoubtedly grown to become a successful means to preserve the Arabic language and encourage creative writing, which are important threads of our Arab culture and tradition. 
“I would like to congratulate all the winners and thank everybody who took part in the competition. I would also like to thank the competition’s judges and everybody who worked on making the competition a success.”  
The winners in the competition’s story collection category are Shaimaa al-Sultan and Ahmed Abdelmalik - joint first place and winners of the QR50,000 prize;  Hanan al-Fayed - second place and winner of the QR30,000 prize; and Bilal Wahb - third place and winner of the QR20,000 prize.
The winners in the poetry category are Osama Fouad - first place and winner of the QR20,000 prize; Omar Hazza - second place and winner of the QR15,000 prize; and Abdelmalik Hammouda - third place and winner of the QR10,000 prize.
Vodafone received more than 150 submissions for the third edition of the competition, which were assessed by an independent panel of judges. The winning submissions will be posted on Vodafone’s website.