NAL’IBALI, the national reading-for-enjoyment campaign, launched a new billboard campaign titled ‘Story Power – Bring it home’ in October.
The purpose of the campaign is to generate awareness and discussion around the power of stories to spark all children’s potential. Building on the simple logic that a well established culture of reading can be a real game-changer for education in South Africa, the campaign seeks to inspire and motivate parents and caregivers to give their children a headstart in life by making reading and storytelling a part of daily life.
To celebrate the launch of the drive, and to directly share the message of Story Power with even more people, the campaign hosted a surprise awareness raising event with children from nearby Nongoma Nal’ibali reading clubs, in sight of one of the billboards at the busy taxi rank area of the Vryheid Plaza on Saturday, October 25.
To ensure that the message of Story Power really did make its way back home, the Nal’ibali team handed out free pamphlets, detailing the benefits of sharing stories with children and explained how members of the public can access free stories in a range of SA languages from Nal’ibali platforms.
In calling for parent and caregiver involvement in children’s literacy learning, the new billboard series moves away from the idea that literacy learning can only take place at school, and only in English.
“Making regular story times with children, is an investment in their education and future,” continued Radebe, “Families grow together through their stories, sharing things like values, life lessons, language and knowledge. By reading and sharing stories, a sense of continuity and shared culture happens in stress-free ways while children get to enjoy themselves with the adults they love.”
“And, even if you can’t read, you can still tell stories to children. Stories spark those parts of their brains concerned with imagination, emotion, sensation and movement. They create the pathways that enable thinking and reasoning,” explained Radebe. “Research has shown that children who read for pleasure perform better in the classroom, and not just in vocabulary and spelling, but also in Maths. And stories are a great way to get children interested in books and reading, starting from birth.”
Just over 500 billboards have been erected nationwide, with taglines translated into the predominant languages of the provinces and locations in which they are found. “We are using African languages and English to help ensure everyone appreciates Nal’ibali’s messages,” said Radebe. “Telling stories and reading regularly to children in home languages provides strong foundations not just for learning to read; but for learning another language like English and for ALL learning.”
