Reading and Learning Rooms

New experiences from Mfuleni

Pupils become more interested when are hands on to what you teach or show them, because they learn more by touching. So it is not easy to some of them to forget what they have touched. I used to come to the Centre and leave without teaching them, they are busy to other activities. Sometimes I decide to call upon grade R to grade 3, and teach them also about how to make simple circuits. Then I also noticed that they learn more fast of how to connect, and they feel very excited as I clap hands when the bulb shines. The following day I have to stop fights, because the grade R’s and others claim to be the first to enter the class.

Since I am teaching them for fun, then some pupils are telling me that in their schools some of my lessons are being asked. So they answer very easy, because some others were asked to make a simple circuit as the school activity in Natural Science, they were happy the day were breaking these news saying they know how to connect it. I was also proud of what I am teaching find a place in their brains/minds. I cannot leave behind the contribution of German resources because they make the difference.
Learners from any background can gain more knowledge at the Reading and Learning Room in Nobantu Centre, if they can follow the three L’s (Listen, Learn and Lead). By so doing and producing these types of brilliant pupils, the RaL-Room at the centre may get more sponsors.”

Reading and Learning Rooms - The beginning

As a large portion of the population of South Africa does not participate in the Cape Town Book Fair’s activities, LitCam and the fair organisers planned to build up and support Reading and Learning Rooms in the townships of Kayelitsha and Mfuleni. LitCam launched the “Reading and Learning Rooms” project together with our cooperation partners, the Cape Town Book Fair, VPUU, Women for Peace and UWC, with an opening event on Thursday, 29 July in the Women for Peace Nobantu Centre in Mfuleni.

At the same time, two other Reading and Learning (RaL) Rooms opened in Khayelitsha. This enabled residents of the townships to attend readings and thereby indirectly take part in the Cape Town Book Fair for the first time. The Reading and Learning Rooms will be equipped with books and learning materials. Further readings, workshops and learning sessions will be organised for at least one year. LitCam will also equip the RaL Rooms with additional educational technology and material.

The project aims to promote reading and writing, but also to support the children and youth in the township with more opportunities to learn, particularly in the field of life skills. LitCam is therefore cooperating with the Siemens Foundation to provide Discovery Boxes for children. There will also be one teacher who will provide additional lessons at a special time in each of the RaL Rooms. The first “Reading and Learning Room” will be situated at the Western Forecourt Khayelitsha station. The 18-square-metre RaL Room will be used by the neighbourhood patrol, which employs 200 people. Here they will have the chance to read books and use the learning tools provided. For this RaL Room, our target group is “functionally illiterate adults”. Therefore, we aim to provide rather “easy to read” books.

The second RaL Room will be a 14 square-metre container, situated near a nursery/kindergarten in Monwabisi Park. A VPUU secretary will be in charge of the books and learning tools. The women from the crèche can borrow books and tools for the children and bring them back to the RaL Room. They can also read books there on site. We will provide the RaL Room with children’s books, picture books and some pedagogical material for the nursery staff. There will also be Discovery Boxes, as well as adequate instruction workshops for the boxes. The third RaL Room will be built up in the Women for Peace Centre in Mfuleni. The target group there will be families and mothers with children. In October, the first library in the township Khayelitsha will open. LitCam will cooperate with the library and implement one Reading and Learning Room there, as well. Four other RaL Rooms will be built up in Khayelitsha by October.