Storytelling is an essential forerunner in children’s literacy development and an important way of preserving culture and language. Yet many of the same stories appear in different parts of the world: passed down from generation to generation, retold in various languages and with different cultural adaptations. These classic fairy tales contain important moral lessons and universal human truths.
As part of Literacy and Heritage Month,…
Meet 53 year old mam Florah Dlamini. From Centocow in Mzikhulu, a small town three hours from Durban. Florah has a reading club in her community and has over the years encouraged many other parents and caregivers to do the same.
What are you currently working on for Nal’ibali and what do you enjoy doing most?
Reading books with children is what I mostly enjoy doing. I…
By: Yandiswa Xhakaza
As a woman, you either love or hate the month of August. It’s the month when women are inundated with requests to attend events, asked to share their experiences, struggles, triumphs, and are reminded of how much more they can (read: should) achieve, despite the challenges they endure.
What does it mean to be a woman? This is a personal question because it…
Meet our Eastern Cape FUNda Leader, 38-year-old Zanele Ndlovu from Gwenxintaba village in Lusikisiki. Zanele is passionate about literacy and has been involved in several initiatives to help instill the love of reading for children in her community.
What are you currently working on for Nal’ibali and what do you enjoy doing most?
I am the co-founder and director of the Novulakuvaliwe Library. We work with…
Khumo Tapfumaneyi is a co-founder of Ethnikids, a specialist online bookstore sourcing and selling children’s books that feature characters of colour in different South African languages. Tapfumaneyi has made it her mission to ensure that as many children as possible can fall in love with reading by seeing children just like themselves reflected in the stories they read.
The Nal’ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign caught up with…
This June, as we remember the Soweto youth who protested the use of Afrikaans and English as the languages of school instruction amongst other injustices, the Nal’ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign calls on aspiring and established authors to donate their original African language stories.
South Africa faces a critical lack of children’s literature in indigenous languages and Nal’ibali believes is is these stories that motivate and inspire…