Short description
FunDza boosts literacy among teen and young adult South Africans by popularising reading, growing a community of readers and developing young writing talent.
Need
The 2013 Annual National Assessments have highlighted the crisis South Africa’s education system faces: learners are not acquiring the basic literacy and numeracy skills for adequate academic performance. In languages, Grade 9 national averages were 43% (home language) and 33% (first additional language). Analysis shows that learners from poorly-resourced schools performed significantly worse than their counterparts from better-resourced schools.
Research shows that those who develop a love of reading perform better both academically and professionally in their later lives. An Oxford University study by Mark Taylor found that reading for pleasure was the only extra-mural activity undertaken by teenagers that had a positive impact on their subsequent academic and professional performance.
Research by Equal Education found that only 9% of schools in South Africa have functional libraries. Books are expensive and not easily available – many learners will matriculate having never read a book for pleasure.
Overview
The FunDza Literacy Trust was established in 2011 with the vision of a society of educated, empowered and engaged young citizens. It believes that this can be realised, in part, by focusing on improving literacy among teens and young adults. Through its programmes, the organisation is working to popularise reading, grow communities of readers and develop young writing talent.
The organisation has beneficiary groups, such as reading groups, schools and community centres, across South Africa with a target group of 13 – 25 year olds. FunDza works to get teens and young adults reading by breaking down the barriers that have prevented the development of a broad reading culture. The organisation creates a demand for reading by producing the type of stories that teens want to read; that reflect their lives, challenges and triumphs. FunDza’s stories are gritty, engaging and prompt discussion.
FunDza connects with readers and writers through three outreach programmes:
- Popularising Reading: providing support to reading groups, schools, community centres, libraries and universities.
- Growing Communities of Readers: delivering high interest reading content via a mobi network to connect with readers in the place where they spend much of their time –their cellphones.
- Developing Young Writers: encouraging readers to develop their creative writing skills and gain the confidence to showcase their work.
What we like about this organisation
The organisation focuses on reading for teenagers and young adults, a group that is not generally well-catered for, as most organisations focus on reading for primary school children. Reading is the foundation of education. Improvements in children’s skills in this area have been shown to have a positive effect on their overall school results.
What difference can your money make?
- R10 000 will cover the cost of a two-month writing mentorship of a developing writer and result in the publication of a single mobi-story to grow Fundza’s pool of writers.
- R250 000 will be used to support 45 additional reading groups of 100 teenagers. The groups will each receive around 10 sets of 10 books to share, which means that each teenager would have 10 books to read in a year
- R750 000 will be used to create, edit and publish 33 mobi-stories and 15 feature articles
Volunteering opportunities
- Graphic design and social media skills
- Professional writers to be mentors or workshop facilitators
- Video or documentary film-makers to capture visits, interviews with readers and other interactions