News & Articles

The Yizani Sifunde Project, a groundbreaking initiative in Eastern Cape, offers a compelling model for addressing the importance of early literacy in a child’s educational journey. This initiative, spearheaded by the Liberty Community Trust, brought together three reputable literacy organisations which are Nal’ibali, Book Dash, and Wordworks. Their collaborative efforts aimed to address a critical issue of children entering school without adequate language and…

“The project moved the children’s average performance from below the Provincial average to far above it” South Africa, Friday, 20 September 2024 – A major challenge in South Africa is that many children start schooling without having acquired basic learning skills at home or in their communities. These basic skills are hard to learn in school. Can children in very poor communities ‘catch up’ before…

The Nal’ibali-Lesedi Literacy Project hosted the Northern Cape Literacy Month Festival to highlight the importance of literacy, cultural heritage, and the power of stories to shape young minds and build stronger communities at the NG Kerk, Postmasburg, Northern Cape recently. Hosted in collaboration with the Northern Cape Department of Sports, Arts, and Culture, the festival brought together educators, learners, and community members for an…

Nal’ibali is thrilled to partner with Takalani Sesame on launching the inaugural Takalani Sesame Play Festival series, hosted in collaboration with the Gauteng Department of Education and other key stakeholders in the early childhood development (ECD) sector. Organisations involved in supporting this initiative include the Seriti Institute and the Lego Foundation among others. The purpose of these festivals is to highlight the vital role that…

Cape Town, Wednesday, 17 July 2024 – Nal’ibali Trust and implementing partners, Mikhulu Trust, Sunshine Association, and Macmillan Education, launched the Siyafunda Community Learning Hubs project, a new early childhood development project aimed at enhancing school readiness in Umsunduzi Municipality, KwaZulu Natal.  This initiative is supported by the USAID to strengthen and build community support for early learning to ensure that more children aged 0-6…

The Nal’ibali team submitted a presentation on how we could and why we should increase access to multilingual books and stories in South Africa at the Amazwi Children’s Literature Conference in Makhanda, Eastern Cape on 5 and 6 June 2024. We focused specifically on the value of storytelling and story writing by children to create books in indigenous South African languages that reflect the experiences of…