Trust founder highlights the importance of early reading

WITH International Literacy Day and National Book Week celebrated in September, early reading is highlighted this month. The Zero2Five Trust is one of the organisations addressing the challenges around literacy.

Falconer says, “Early reading at preschool level is important to narrow the literacy gap. The time between birth and five years is a crucially formative period for a child, setting the trajectory for school and beyond.”

Zero2Five Trust provides nutritional and educational support to children attending more than 400 under-resourced early childhood development (ECD) centres in vulnerable, rural communities in KZN and the Eastern Cape. One of the NPO’s partnerships is with Book Dash, a Cape-based social-impact publisher of free children’s books.

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“Following the April floods, Book Dash recommended appropriate books from their portfolio to help children in KZN. They have a huge library and they gave us books they thought would help our children. The feedback we had from our parents and the Early Childhood Development centres was amazing. Specific books helped the children over this initial dark time, mirroring the feelings of fear they experienced. Book Dash does a lot of deep work in that space – they don’t only produce books; they tell stories that are relevant in the African and provincial context,” says Falconer.

Book Dash creates their impactful titles in a unique way by calling creatives to volunteer their time for a 12-hour event, with the aim of producing 10 books. The NPO with the stated mission of making sure that ‘every child owns a hundred books by the age of five’, will be back in Durban for a book-creating event for the first time since 2015.

The Durban event is due to take place at the TWIMS Kloof Campus on October 29. According to the Book Dash website, this event is viewed as the ‘Comrades of Creativity’, and they would love Durban creatives to join them in their book-making mission.

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Falconer says Book Dash accepts recommendations and requests from invested parties.

She says, “I can give input as to what I think the sector needs. We have 500 centres in the Eastern Cape, and we need Xhosa books there. We made a recommendation when we started our massive food-garden project, and right away, Book Dash made a book called My Little Garden. Together with training the ECD practitioners to plant and maintain the food gardens, we also give the children books to get them involved. It makes a huge difference.”

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Falconer is a maritime lawyer who came to the country to study and never left. Following her marriage to a born and bred Durbanite, the social activist relocated to KZN and began volunteering. Once she realised the scope of the need for early childhood nutrition and education, she started her own programme.

Zero2Five is focused on nutrition, early childhood education programmes and capacity-building and skills development of the ECD facilitators. Falconer says the last three years have seen growth for her organisation, and they have impacted approximately 20 000 children.

For more information: https://bookdash.org.za OR https://zero2five.org.za

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