Blog

A rondavel in rural Mahlubini seemed an unlikely venue for first time author Aviwe Gudula, to read from her book, ‘Journey of her Scars to Womanhood’. Yet the intimate setting yielded a unique experience for the youth at Mahlubini Community Reading Club, in the town of Cofimvaba, in the Eastern Cape. In the final days of Women’s Month, Nal’ibali literacy mentor, Asiphe Mkumbuzi, invited...

The strong arm of the law showed a much softer side when Bowmans, a leading African law firm visited some Nal'ibali reading clubs in townships in Durban, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, to read a story aloud, have a cup of tea and something sweet with some Nal’ibali bookworms. This was part of their Nelson Mandela Day initiative, earlier this month. This year, as one of...

Nal’ibali, the national reading-for-enjoyment campaign aimed at sparking children’s potential through reading and storytelling, has been awarded The Joy of Reading Prize by the Systematic Joy of Reading at Dook 1 in Aarhus, Denmark. The award was presented by the president of the International Library Association, IFLA, Glòria Pérez-Salmerón from Spain on Saturday, 1 June. Twenty-eight projects from around the world were nominated, focussing on...

I was born and bred in the township of Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal. It is the fourth largest township in South Africa, and the only township with its own car registration plate: NUZ. In Umlazi, there is a small section called Chicago where I have lived for the past 21 years, although I still couldn’t tell you how it came to be named Chicago! One...