06/02/2025
Ng’ombe community observes World Read Aloud Day
By Hugh Lungu
The global celebration of World Read Aloud Day was yesterday marked with a vibrant and impactful event in Lusaka’s Ng'ombe Township, where the Impact One Initiative hosted an event, which was aimed at promoting literacy and the joy of reading.
The celebration which was organized by REACH ONE CHILD Foundation brought together local organisations, including the Library and Information Association of Zambia - LIAZ, in a show of solidarity for improving educational access and awareness.
World Read Aloud Day, celebrated annually across the world, focuses on encouraging the habit of reading aloud, fostering a love for books, and highlighting the importance of literacy in young children.
The day also serves as a reminder of the power of reading to connect people and communities, building empathy, critical thinking, and communication skills.
The commemoration in Ng'ombe Township featured a series of activities designed to engage children, educators, and the community at large in reading aloud and appreciating the value of books.
In a joyful display, children from the township participated in storytelling sessions, where they read from a collection of age-appropriate books.
Volunteers from Impact One Initiative, Reach One Child Foundation, and LIAZ guided the children through interactive sessions, encouraging them to explore the stories and express their creativity through reading and performing.
Impact One Initiative Executive Director Whitney Morreau Zulu narrated to Venus Media how her organization had been helping the community in shaping children’s lives through reading.
“As Impact One, we begun in 2013 and our primary mission is to equip community schools in Ng’ombe area by training and mentoring the school leaders and teachers. We work alongside 17 partner schools in the compound right now and we train their teachers and their leaders to provide better services in their schools to help tackle issues that the community is facing by coming alongside them,” explained Mrs. Zulu
“So one of the things that we do is we train the teachers on how to teach literacy, English literacy. So in their schools, they are using a program that we train them in to be able to train their kids how to read. But in order to practice reading you need to have access to books. So we also provide access to books through our library. So we lend books to kids so that they can practice reading every day. But the schools also have the opportunity to come to our library once a week to enjoy the exposure of what they can get when they come to the library.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Library and Information Association of Zambia President Mutinta Nabuyanda shared her thoughts on the significance of promoting reading and literacy.
“One thing I can say is that you can never go wrong with reading; it makes you well-rounded and able to engage in any discussion, no matter where you are. It’s like how food nourishes the body; reading nourishes the mind. That’s the true advantage of reading. My advice to the younger generation is this: you can never say, ‘I don’t have time for reading.’ If you find time to eat, to move from point A to point B, or to sleep, then you can certainly find time to read. It all comes down to priorities. Just as we prioritize eating for our physical well-being, we should also prioritize reading for our intellectual growth. Once you decide to make reading a priority and set aside a specific time for it, you’ll find that the time will be there, you’ll create it,” said Ms. Nabuyanda.
“Remember when people say ‘I didn’t have time to call you’, it’s not that they didn’t have the time to call you, they didn’t just prioritise you, that is the bottom line. So it’s about priorities, time is already there.”
Meanwhile, Reach One Child Foundation Programmes Coordinator Mayaba Habeenzu highlighted how her organization was involved in initiatives that support vulnerable children to stay in school.
“The main program our organization runs is primarily supporting children attain a good education from our vulnerable communities here in Lusaka and throughout Zambia. So the main thing that we do is we sponsor their education, their tuition fees, we provide them with uniforms and also educational materials that they will need in order to go to school and participate fully. We also work with community schools, we provide them with resources because they often do not have enough funding to provide enough adequate resources to support their children,” explained M.s Habeenzu.
“Beyond that, we also have a literacy program that we run in our community schools, which is just supposed to bolster the efforts of the community schools in providing these children with the best possible education that they can have, because literacy is the foundation of all learning processes, especially in our modern systems. In order for them to understand science, they must be able to read and to write and to understand what they are reading.”
