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Nal’ibali Calls for Original Children’s Stories in Indigenous Languages

Nal’ibali Promotes Family Literacy and Reading for Enjoyment on International Day of Families

Nal’ibali Marks World Book and Copyright Day with Celebration in Soweto

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…
A love of reading is sparked when children see themselves in stories and relate it to their lives, even more so when it is shared in their home language. Xolisa Guzula – early literary specialist, author and translator – agrees that when children learn to read in their mother tongues it’s much easier to build on that foundation. However, a survey by the Publishers Association SA…
I am Melody Ngomane, born and bred in Hazyview, Mpumalanga. My first contact with Nal’ibali was in 2019 when I submitted stories for their radio stories season 5 submission. I have since submitted 21 stories for both Seasons 5 and 6. Some of those, namely The old woman and the bee, The mirror in the jungle, The kind man, Daisy’s little voice and Lazy Lollie were…
Meet Bubele Retshe My writing journey dates back to 2005 when I fell in love with reading and the English language. It was the year that I was sent to a school where English was the medium of teaching and communication. At that point in my life, the only English phrase I knew with confidence was, “Good morning, ma’am.” My English was so poor that I…