WATCH: Poet reads favourite excerpts for Read Aloud Day
Arts enthusiast, Nomakhwezi Becker, says literacy opened inaccessible worlds for her.
WHETHER told orally or in writing, there are endless places a mind can wander to from a good read.
To foster a culture of reading to children, World Read Aloud Day, observed on Wednesday, 3 February, encourages parents to read aloud to their young.
Reading aloud is one of the most important things a parent, caregiver, or teacher can do towards developing young children.
As someone exposed to books from infancy, Bluff-based poet, actress, theatre-maker, writer, and arts administrator, Nomakhwezi Becker, said literacy opened inaccessible worlds for her.
She is thrilled by being able to gain knowledge, travel, and imagine spaces she’s never seen or been to through reading. “It means I get to go through someone’s lived experience and enter their mind and emotions.
I can find somebody who looks, sounds, is, and resonates with me without having to move my feet,” she said. Being the daughter of an eThekwini Living Legend, reading books from all over the world has shaped her life.
“I still look at children’s books in my home and think what wonderful books they are. I have books from all over the world. I also have many mothers, yes, my birth mother is ma Gcina Mhlophe, but through her sisters, friends, and connections, I grew to have a family of mothers.”
“Culturally we’re raised by a community, mine just happened to expand across the ocean. Not just stories coming from my mother, who I would hear at every other show since I was an infant, but I was able to learn other stories from other parts of Africa. That was significant for my growth,” she said.
This year, the organisation for the national reading-for-enjoyment campaign, Nal’ibali, hopes to reach three million children for World Read Aloud Day.
Aimed at sparking children’s potential through storytelling and reading. To join the national celebration and help Nal’ibali break its read-aloud record by reading this year’s special story to the children in your life, visit www.nalibali.org to make your pledge and download a special story to read.
