The month of September is traditionally celebrated by Library and Information Services for Westonaria with a variety of events focusing on reading as National Book Week is about promoting reading.
An exciting programme took place at the Main Library in Westonaria on 7 September, children and adults, schools and various groups, in and around Westonaria met up, enabling the voices of the youth to be heard during a poetry slam.
Talking at the event, Koekie Meyer, Director Libraries and Archives – Gauteng Division, said she was very excited seeing budding young South African writers coming to the fore, she also expressed her hope to see the work of these youngsters in local libraries in the near future.
Young Tholakile Sithole (16) from Westonaria High School walked away as overall winner. On asked by Koekie what she is planning on doing with her prize money she replied: “I am going to plough it back into my Reading Club in Bekkersdal.”
Library and Information Service Westonaria is truly committed to the national effort to embrace the value of reading, sharing it with as many people as possible and getting young writer’s voices into print.
During September the library also hosted various Nali’bali Reading Programmes in Bekkersdal, Simunye and Westonaria, all focussing on reading in local schools and libraries but the reading promotion projects reached wider with programme librarian, Righardt le Roux, also being invited to Hoërskool Jan Viljoen in Randfontein and Tulani Sec School in Kagiso in order to celebrate reading and the magic of books.
Westonaria Library is concerned with the development of all youngsters of the country and helping them to become employable citizens within our democratic society.
“It is our objective to increase youth participation in all our programmes,” says Righardt, “and in this way engage more young people to see the value libraries are adding to communities. Over the past year we have seen an steady increase in youth participation with youth actively involved at community level assisting in various volunteer projects such as the Eco Gecko Environment Programme.”
