On the 19th of September, together with the British Council, Activate and the Gordon Institute of Business Science, we hosted the #CODEREaD Literacy event. The objective is to create dialogue around reading for leisure, digital literacy, and the power of storytelling as a mechanism to pass wisdom between generations in South Africa.
The power of the partnership has allowed different stakeholders in the literacy space to brainstorm around ideas on how to change the narrative of literacy amongst youth in South Africa. The event brought together young community changemaker, corporates, NGOs and government parastatal organisations. The panel included a young published author Ntsikelelo Mzibomvu. Kirston Hoets, the director of Booktalk (Overdrive) which focuses on digital Literacy and Nombulelo Baba who is reading coordinator at National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT), the panel to set the tone, took us on their personal journeys with books. The conversation was then given over to the audience who sat in groups to find solutions that can eradicate the low literacy rates in SA.
The groups came with innovative and implementable ideas to create and sustain change. We hope that next year we can share stories of the changes that have been made through these actions.
