Founded in 2012 by the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (Praesa) and the DG Murray Trust, Nal’ibali has spread its influence, working with an ever-growing number of children and parents across the country. (Image: Nal’ibali)
Nal’ibali, a South African campaign aimed at promoting reading for enjoyment, has issued its 2016 Story Power Promise, and in so doing has again committed itself to helping South African parents instil a strong reading ethos in their children.
Parents and children are asked to sign a pledge agreeing to help establish strong reading habits in their children as well as to maintain and develop those habits that are already in place.
“Reading and sharing stories with children is one of the most powerful gifts you can give them,” says Nal’ibali general director Jade Jacobsohn.
“Not only does it help to develop children’s literacy skills, it also fires up those parts of the brain concerned with imagination, emotion, sensation and movement. Ultimately it helps to create the neural circuits that enable sophisticated thinking and reasoning, helping children to do well at school.”
Founded in 2012 by the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (Praesa) and the DG Murray Trust, Nal’ibali has spread its influence, working with an ever-growing number of children and parents across the country. Its focus is to build and feed excitement about reading in a range of different languages.
It works with more than 800 reading clubs, a number it is continually seeking to grow through sustained mentoring of and collaboration with communities, literacy organisations and volunteers of all ages.
The above infographic serves to highlight some of the many advantages of reading to children. (Image: Nal’ibali)
Nal’ibali issues a bi-weekly reading-for-enjoyment newspaper supplement and weekly radio stories which have also made a significant contribution to the library of South African children’s literature and stories. This year, Nal’ibali plans to add eight more stories to the 51 it has already produced and made freely available.
“We have made our promise to the nation to assist and support children and adults in becoming strong and powerful readers through the development, translation and distribution of literacy materials,” said Jacobsohn.
Nal’ibali would continue to provide on-the-ground support for those invested in its efforts in the hope that they would join the campaign on its literacy journey in 2016 and ” work together to grow a nation that reads”.
The Story Power Promise forms part of Nal’ibali’s broader Story Power campaign, and carries the clear message that anyone can share a story anytime, anywhere. The main concept behind the campaign is the belief that children who enjoy story-time and being read to will, as they grow up, be more likely to read by themselves and build further on the foundation built by their parents and caregivers.
This is, for the most part, why the campaign encourages parents and caregivers to take it upon themselves to make story-time a fun part of their daily routine with the children.
Nal’ibali has a wide range of stories in a number of home-languages that can be downloaded from its mobile site or website.
For more information about the Nal’ibali campaign and how to get involved, can visit the website or mobi site, or find the campaign on Facebook or Twitter: nalibaliSA.
Watch this video touching on some of the defining characteristics of the Nal’ibali Campaign:
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