If you step out of Cape Town airport with your eyes open it won’t be long before you start to notice our children. We have a lot of them – 18.5 million of them at the last census in 2014. (53.7 million total population in 2014.)
You will see them in the terminal, of course, but as you drive towards the city centre you will notice more and more of them. They will be playing soccer at the roadside. They will be busy with younger children. They will be helping get firewood and water. They will be making carts out of old shopping trollies. Some of them will be just sitting quietly. Some will be smiling, some will be sad. Some of them will be thinking about joining gangs. These are the children CBN needs to reach.
Children’s Book Network believes passionately that we need to give the skill of reading with interest and joy to our children here in South Africa. It is such a simple thing to do. Make books fun, make reading enjoyable; make books a possibility in their lives, and the rest will follow.
For the eight years we have been working with children in communities in Red Hill informal settlement, Clanwilliam and the Overstrand, we have developed ideas and methods that work. We see it in the children’s eyes. Our ambition for the next three years is to take that forward and teach those skills to those who can take them out to more and more children, to give them wings.
Please read our funding proposal. The nuts and bolts of how we want to do this are there. Donations, however small, will help us to help them.
The most recent funding proposal can be found as a pdf file under OUR RECORDS on our website www.childrensbook.co.za
For more information, please contact info@childrensbook.co.za
