Nearly half a century after the end of European colonialism in Africa, its effects remain with us, and nowhere more starkly than in the area of access to literature.
Across the continent, public libraries remain few and far between, new and second-hand books are prohibitively expensive, and few seem to care that an entire generation of Africans is being deprived of an essential tool for building critical thinking, self-understanding, empathy, imagination & cultural awareness.
Instead, our mobile phones, televisions & radio stations blast us with the pop-cultural output of other climes, and our magazines and newspapers have a tendency to truck in tabloid sensationalism, leading us down paths of ignorance and self-loathing.
Smartphone User Projections in Key African Markets:
South Africa – 27 million by 2023
Kenya – 33.5 million by 2025
Ghana – 20.9 million by 2025
Nigeria – 90 million by 2025
AfroStory, has developed a revolutionary new Android app that gives users instant access to a mini-library of 50 mainly African and African-American books, with a smattering of other classic texts – all for a once-off download fee of just $2.50.
AfroStory aims to make the wonder and beauty of African literature available to as many people around the world as possible, in a sophisticated reader-friendly format, for the lowest price possible.
South African children, along with their global counterparts in 66 countries, are today once again immersing themselves in a world of new words, interesting characters and gripping plots on World Read Aloud Day.
Presented by global literacy non-profit LitWorld and sponsored by Scholastic, the annual literacy celebration advocates for greater access to literacy through diverse stories, as well as the power of reading aloud.
This has shown to have an immense impact on the academic and cognitive development of a child, and as suggested by a recent national survey of 4,517 public school educators in the US*, their social-emotional well-being too.
In her analysis of that survey, author and literacy expert Pam Allyn stated that ‘’…many students grapple with new routines and rituals during distance learning, or physical separations in their classrooms due to COVID-19 constraints, the benefits [of reading] are particularly poignant, profound, and powerful for the mind and spirit.’’
On a global scale, the pandemic has underscored the importance of reading and literacy.
The World Literacy Foundation believes that reading will help learners remain in touch with their learning until formal education systems are able to make a full recovery.
During this tumultuous time, where the risk of learners becoming disengaged from or wholly deprived of their education is greater than ever, reading potentially mitigates these effects.
The question that begs to be answered now is this: how do we ensure that children in South Africa can learn to be literate in their homes, communities and places of formal education during and beyond the pandemic?
