This week, King’s Academy students launched the first issue of the school’s first multilingual newspaper King’s Global Times (KGT). The student-led publication, currently available online, features articles, poetry and other content in languages including Chinese, French, Korean, Romanian and Spanish. Each piece is printed side-by-side with a translation in English.

Initiated by KGT’s Editor-in-Chief Nadine Kurdi ’22, in coordination with the Round Square Office, the goal of the publication is to provide King’s students — who represent some 40 different nationalities — with the opportunity to read and write in languages other than English and Arabic.

“Knowing four languages, personally, helps me so much with communicating with others and understanding those cultures,” says Kurdi on why she decided to launch the newspaper. “When you speak the language, you get access to that culture in a way you wouldn’t otherwise. I wanted to encourage others to learn more languages. What better way to do so than by encouraging people to read and write in that language.”

A further 10 students worked on the newspaper as editors and on layout and design: Reema Zubaidi ’21, Kristina Kantarzis ’22, Fajer Saraireh ’22, Langqing Xie ’22, Samira Albattah ’22, Seunghyeok Lee ’24, Wedad AlRousan ’22, Yanlin Li ’22, Tara Abughazaleh ’22 and Yinzhe Liu ’24.

Article topics ranged from the spring semester Green Zone, to mental health, the benefits of gene editing, the pros and cons of social media, the history of Chinese script, the importance of vaccines, and the school’s K.A.R.E. program, to name a few. It also includes QR codes linking to nine songs in different languages, each selected by one of the editors.

KGT is a celebration of the school’s diversity and culture, according to Tara Abu Ghazaleh ’22, one of its French editors. “The King’s community cherishes the differences among its students. KGT acknowledges students’ voices through different languages.”

Read King’s Global Times here