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Largest moving human flag!

ABU DHABI - It takes a group of individuals to make up a nation — and so too a national flag, it seems.

School bus after school bus took over the Emirates Palace early Sunday morning, with nearly 8,000 schoolchildren gathered to form the UAE’s largest ever moving human flag by about 8am — though in the end it was 2,000 who comprised the flag.

The gesture by the Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE) was in recognition of the country’s 41^st National Day.

Head of sudent affairs development at the ECAE Samira Ahmed Al Nuaimi said the teachers’ college got the green light to pursue its idea of putting together a giant human flag about a month ago.

“This is for His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE President, and for all the UAE Rulers. It is also for all the teachers of our country, proud to be moulding the future generation of UAE, through education.”

Apart from the college’s students, public and private schools throughout Abu Dhabi emirate wanted to participate, with most of the participants coming from middle and high school signed up to participate.

“We didn’t have any previous practice. This is the first time we all meet together, but there is no actual movement, no particular steps, so it is really easy,” said Hassan Wasfi, a student from Nahda National School, who represented the red colour of the UAE flag.

At 11am, when it was all meant to start, the lawn in the Western Park of the Emirates Palace was covered by students, all split in groups representing each colour of the national flag, and each group held together by one or more coordinators. From a purposely built platform, the “choreographer” of the entire body of children was constantly shouting directions, making sure the lines were kept.

A small improvised amphitheatre was set in front of the “flag”, where representatives of Shaikh Khalifa’s office came to watch the ceremony. Some of the invitees joined a group of kindergarten students in a traditional Emirati dance.

The Abu Dhabi Police’s band flanked the flag ready to perform the National Anthem, which signalled the start of the flag show. Finally, close to 11.30am, the helicopter that filmed the flag from above appeared and the human flag began to “wave”.

Students were chanting, throwing their caps in the air and waving their hands as loud and energetic as young, teenage boys can get. The only girls in the flag, wearing their abayas, were the ECAE students, representing the black colour.

“I wanted to do something for my country for the National Day, and this is perfect,” said ECAE student Hajar Khalifa.

“We’ve been here all morning and it’s getting very hot, but it is worth it. We are Emiratis and we love our country,” she added.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com