National behaviour change campaign seeks to establish a reading culture in South Africa

Summary:
The most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found that 78% of South Africa's grade four leaners can't read for meaning. Of the 50 participating countries, SA scored the lowest. Launched in 2012 and designed for growth, Nal'ibali (isiXhosa for "here's the story") is a national reading-for-enjoyment campaign. It seeks to spark and embed a culture of reading across SA so that reading, writing and sharing stories - in all SA languages - is part of everyday life. Children who regularly read and hear stories in languages they understand are better equipped and motivated to learn to read and write, and more likely to find fulfilling jobs and make a contribution to society. Nal'ibali helps children to fall in love with reading and strives to grow a reading culture in four main ways. (1) Spreading knowledge and awareness. We believe that reading and sharing stories should happen anytime, anywhere. We also raise awareness of the link between reading for enjoyment, reading in home language and educational achievement. (2) Creating opportunities to engage with books and stories. Nal'ibali actively promotes and helps to create safe spaces where children can meet to read for enjoyment. (3) Training and supporting reading role models. Nal'ibali trains and guides people to run reading clubs, and we offer face-to-face training and free online learning. (4) Sharing reading resources. Nal'ibali finds, creates, translates and distributes high-quality children's stories in all SA languages. These resources are freely available on our website.

Background/Objectives:

Nal'ibali is a national behaviour change campaign seeking to shift attitudes and practices to establish a reading culture in South Africa. It seeks to increase awareness that reading for enjoyment helps children learn and equip adults with knowledge and tools to promote it; the percentage of adults who read aloud to children, and frequency of this; and to highlight the importance of public libraries and book borrowing. We want children to read and hear stories in the language of their choice; to choose what they read for pleasure; increase library attendance; and spread our easily-adoptable quality reading club model.

Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:

We hold events where we read aloud and distribute books so children can choose what they read and build personal libraries. Our mass media (billboards, print, radio advertising) reaches millions of people to raise awareness in targeted areas with high child populations. We have a robust, engaged digital community that discusses and promotes multilingual children's stories, which are regularly added to our website; and a loyalty programme that retains, rewards and recognises adult volunteers. We run a national library membership competition to increase use of public libraries. We produce bilingual reading materials in 8 SA languages, distributed via newspapers, post offices and directly to reading clubs. We broadcast radio stories in all 11 SA languages to 7.5m listeners weekly. We provide guidance, materials and branding for reading clubs. We run face-to-face and digital training for adults on how to be literacy activists and to run reading clubs.

Results/Lessons Learned:

Nal'ibali creates a trusted way for our target audience to connect by providing a consistent supply of reading materials. This allows for the retention of human connectedness within the context of behaviour change. While the job is far from done, Nal'ibali has achieved the following to date: 296,736 people have participated in 3667 events. For World Read Aloud Day in 2019, 2,988,897 children read aloud to! 28,136,209 people reached by billboards and 14,466,353 by radio ads in areas with the most children. We have 34,658 Facebook likes, almost 10,000 Twitter followers and 200,000 website visits in 2019. We've appeared in 1242 print/online articles and interviews. 550,340 books, 1,419,135 magazines and 37,281,218 bilingual reading supplements have been distributed. We reach 7.5m listeners via our radio stories weekly. We have 115,114 children in 3958 reading clubs across SA. We have 21,920 volunteers and we've trained 28,484 adults face-to-face and online.

Discussion/Implications for the Field:

More than 30.4 million South Africans :55.5% of the population :live in poverty. People living below the poverty line lack access to basic resources like health services, safety, and education. And 29% of the population is unemployed. We know literacy is a major factor in driving economic and social development, so we have to change peoples' attitudes to reading :now! People don't need to be literate to be spread the love of reading. Stories can be told orally, they can be made up and acted out. Anyone can do it, but everyone has a role to play.

Abstract submitted by:

Benjamin Rycroft - Nal'ibali