Imran Mojib, Special Correspondent

FUNN, the Sharjah-based organisation that promotes and supports media arts learning for children and the youth in the UAE, will organise a VGX Event from June 19-21, at the Expo Centre, Sharjah.

The event will be the first of its kind to be held in the emirate of Sharjah, dedicated to tapping the popularity of video games among children and young people and utilising it to benefit them by increasing their creativity and intellectual skills, and stimulating lateral thinking.

VGX Events is targeted at a broad audience of school and university students, apart from amateur and professional video gamers and YouTubers, between the ages of 8-30 years.

Sheikha Jawaher Bint Abdullah Al Qasimi, Director of FUNN and Sharjah International Children and Youth Film Festival, said, “We are committed to empowering children and youth of Sharjah and the UAE with the best of relevant skills and training in creative fields, including gaming. For this purpose, VGX Event will include educational as well as entertainment workshops that will cover all aspects of gaming with a hands-on approach to bringing the participants up-to-date about the latest trends in this most recent of additions to the creative industry.”

She added, “Video games play a prominent role in character improvement through puzzles and games that involve problem-solving and require logical communication and linking of different events to reach the solution.”

The event will also provide both beginners and experienced professionals access to the latest versions of games and provide insights into the current trends in the gaming industry.

FUNN aims to nurture a future generation of creative artists in the media and film industry, and promotes new media works and films made by children and young filmmakers in the UAE at international film festivals and conferences worldwide. Its larger goal is to foster talent through these festivals, conferences and workshops locally and internationally.

In March this year on the occasion of Emirati Children’s Day, FUNN has organised an array of activities with special workshops and programmes, that made it a fun-filled day for children.

Children were invited to a lineup of creatively curated events that included a stop motion workshop, scanography, comic arts and make up drawings along with film screenings.

As part of Emirati Children’s Day events, FUNN participated in the event organised by the General Directorate of Amiri Guards at their office by organising a stop motion workshop.

The workshop targeted children aged 8-13 years who were taught the art of bringing inanimate objects to life. Children were given props and different items to trial how moving objects in small increments between each photographed frame, created an impression of movement.

Considered to be a most dedicated form of animation, children were trained on a stop motion studio app, accentuating effects by adding sound to their final video. Thus, it enabled them to create beautiful stop motion animated movies, instantly on their devices.

The next stop for children aged between 7 to 17, was FUNN’s own office at the Supreme Council of Family Affairs. The workshop there was held for children of prisoners in collaboration with Sharjah Police, as part of Sharjah Police’s “Giving Hope” initiative.

The workshop taught children how to capture digitised images to create printable art. Often referred to as scanography or scanner photography, the activity was not only fun and beautiful but also intriguing and gimmicky. Children then scanned different things, to create their own artistic image.

For comic fans who loved dabbling in cartoons, the next workshop was purposed to teach artworks that comic books, graphic novel, manga and anime industries deploy. Children learnt the basics of comic book art by conveying humour, recent trends or current events. A face chart was then distributed to implement the illustrations.

Recently, to celebrate the World Happiness Day, FUNN has launched the ‘Best Animation Video Competition’ for children aged 6 to 19. The winners of the competition were announced on March 20, 2019.