Almost 700 of Ekurhuleni’s young minds from both primary and high schools (Grades Three to Eight) gathered at the first-ever Tirrogae-Ekurhuleni Book and Storytelling Festival at Unisa’s Daveyton campus recently.
The morning was filled with interactive reading, storytelling and arts.
The event was arranged by Tirrogae Interactive Educational Projects and African Bank in partnership with Tina Cowely, MathMasters, The Reading Gogos, Siyaphumelela and AVM arts.
It kicked off with presentations by Anna Brown of the Department of Basic Education, and project manager of School Library Promotion, and the Namibian author, Donald Mokwetle, who shared his thoughts on the value of literature in our lifetime.
Learners received various literature interactive lessons at different stalls.
Some did literature through drama, spelling bees, storytelling through puppets, reading through tech gadgets, audio book, listening exercises, group reading, rhymes and much more.
All the stalls offered a variety of lessons, each running for 30 minutes. Every lesson had a prize for the group attending.
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At the end, one learner walked away with the main prize – a fully paid university bursary sponsored by MathMasters.
Other prizes included a six-month tutor prize from MathMasters and various goodie bags packed with stationery and more.
Nkululeko Malepa, trainee developer at the African Bank, and founder of Tirogae Interactive Educational Projects, said his objective is to make the youth functionally literate through developing interactive learning programmes.
African Bank has been working closely with the organisation since 2015, initially through its book tricycles door-to-door campaign.
“African Bank provided the funding for five book tricycles, each valued at between R10 000 and R20 000,” he said.
“I believe that no problem in this country can be solved until the issue of illiteracy is resolved.”
Kennedy Dembetembe, African Bank’s National CSI manager, said his bank is proud to be a part of this movement.
“Reading is fundamental and needs to be encouraged.”
“The African Bank CSI and creative teams worked tirelessly to ensure that the Book Festival was a success from concept, planning, design and marketing, to execution and financial support for food and the setting of the venue and other logistics.”
“Many thanks also go to the Daveyton branch of the African Bank, and to all who joined forces to impact the lives of the youth of Ekurhuleni,” he said.
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