Fun with books
When they were motivated to start a movement creating awareness about literacy and reading within the Daveyton community, a group of young people decided to start a book club.
Established four months ago, the Daveyton Book Club began its mission to win readers and educate people.
”The club was establish to bring about change in notions such as ‘blacks don’t read’, and actually bring a culture change in terms of reading and preserving our culture and other indigenous ideals in our communities,” said Kwandile Sikhosana, founder of the book club.
On the last weekend of every month, book club gatherings are hosted at the Elethu Chesire home for the disabled in Daveyton.
The reason for choosing this venue is to create an awareness of disability in the youth, and also to show that being disabled does not make you less of a person.
Sikhosana added that ”the reason why we, as an organisation, chose Elethu Cheshire home is because we wanted to include them in community programmes, as not much is done to contribute to their development and create entertainment for them.”
Through the monthly gatherings the club currently has 50 members and would like to increase this number by means of the different programmes they run within the Daveyton community.
In between the monthly meetings, books by various African authors are sold out of a trolley for R5, to raise funds.
At last month’s gathering, a well established author called Brian Wells, from Geluksdal, was in attendance and he committed himself to help other aspiring authors in Daveyton, through the Brian Wells Foundation.
Initiatives such as taking children on excursions, helping community members with bursaries, scholarships, learnerships and skills development programmes are some of the other projects in which the book club is involved.
The response that parents and community members have given the book club has been positive.
”The book club continues to grow; young people are becoming more aware of it,” Sikhosana said.
“As you know, young people love joining trends and the book club is trending as we speak, so the response has been great.”
People can join the club by liking the Daveyton Book Club Facebook page and then sending an inbox requesting membership forms.
For more information, contact Sikhosana on 084 763 1092, or email to kwandilesikhosana1@gmail.com.
