Open Book Cape Town is committed to encouraging a love of books and reading. Five days of the year – while tremendously exciting – is not going to do that. It is for that reason that we have begun a number of projects that we will have continued involvement with, ensuring a significant and sustainable impact.
Mentoring Project
The mentoring project is an important one to all of us. Our vision was to watch 10 students with an interest in writing learn from suitable mentors over the course of several months. The programme is off to a good start, and we hope to have some exciting results to publish in time for Open Book 2012.
Students and mentors have been allowed access to the facilities at the District 6 Museum/Homecoming Centre, so a huge thanks to the staff there for making that possible! Unfortunately, some of the students have opted out of the programme due to time constraints, but 7 remain and are all working well with their mentors.
As well as the one-on-one meetings between students and mentors, we are setting up an exciting programme of monthly get-togethers. The aim is to open students’ minds to the possibilities that writing offers.
Thanks to the mentors involved in the programme for giving so generously of their time. Thanks also to Oxford University Press for their donation of thesauruses.
Stocking a Library
The sad fact is that while schools may have a room called a library, many of those are empty of books. With help from Equal Education and the incredible support of festival goers and publishers, we were able to hand over a stocked library to Matthew Goniwe Memorial High School on the 24th September 2011.
Work at the library has continued to be incredibly rewarding. We visit the library weekly to offer support and ensure that everything is running as smoothly as possible. The teachers’ Reading Club we established at the school has proved to be very popular and we are looking forward to starting a similar club for students in the first half of 2012.
Parkhurst Primary in Mitchell’s Plain has been identified as the school we will be stocking a library for in 2012. Home to 1250 students, the school has a library space and the start of what is going to be an incredible library! The Book Lounge recently hosted the Picador 40th Birthday Bash, which was also the first Open Book event of 2012. Various artists generously donated work which was auctioned off, the proceeds of which will be used to buy books for Parkhurst Primary. We have made a strong start and look forward to buying the first batch of books in the coming weeks.
Recently, we were able to drop off the first of the books for the library as well as a printer. Thanks go to Pan Macmillan and Book Promotions for their generous donation of books and to Coricraft for the donation of the printer.
Dr Fillis (principal of Parkhurst Primary) and Frankie Murrey
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Projects in the Future
There are many South Africans writing today who struggle to get an international audience. We are in the process of negotiating exchange programmes that will enable local authors to travel to other countries to showcase their work at other literary festivals. Watch this space!