Books and Bicycles have more in common than the ‘b’ in the efforts towards building a more literate land. The book is a powerful instrument of education; the bicycle, less so. Or so we thought.
Turns out the humble, carbon-neutral, two-wheeler has a role in developing junior readers and writers in South Africa. We learnt this when citizens of Cape Town mounted their free speeds and cycled into the East City one sunny December Saturday to donate books to learners across the country. The meeting point was The Bookery and the initiative is Books on Bikes Book Collection Day.
Books on Bikes is the brainchild of Bike & Saddle, an eco-active travel company that works in tandem with Youth Empowerment Project (YEP Clan!) to promote self-education and self-propelled transportation (which is more than a trendy, eco-friendly marketing gimmick).
“The focus is to create awareness of books and bikes as development tools in both urban and rural environments,” says organizer, Gustav Erlank, “It plays out differently in the two areas but is equally relevant. In rural areas bicycles as a means of transport and utility is perhaps more relevant. And in urban areas, biking becomes a healthy and carbon neutral alternative to cars and congestion. It makes cities more ‘live-able’ and attractive for its citizens.”
The theme is carried through into some of the new projects to be undertaken in 2011 which aim to encourage literacy as well as to introduce actual bicycles into school communities, “to use the bicycle as a tool with which we can speak to the imagination of scholars and students and in this way create a passion for reading, writing and through that support literacy in our society.” It takes the form of a competition. Grade 10 and 11 pupils will be invited to enter essays themed ‘my red bicycle’, and the winner of the competition in each participating school will win a red bicycle to the value of R2000. Incentive can be a handy way to encourage learning, and while exclusive privilege in an impoverished school system is questionable in terms of social cohesion in a system with a dynamic tension between the remnants of bantu education and the aspirations of uBuntu, there’s no doubt that creating a buzz around an idea can lead to better ideas, perhaps even a sponsored bicycle lending system open to all learners in the schools lucky enough to get new libraries from The Bookery. We can dream, and we can do.
For now, it’s top gear for everyone involved in Books on Bikes. “For those who’ve participated in our events,” says Gustav Erlank. “The impact has been to energize and mobilize. Which is what we need if we want to influence attitudes.”
The initiative is certainly offering inspiration and alternatives in local education. While only in its 3rd event of the year, the efforts has already had some strategic success, as the National Dept of Education and Dept of Culture is showing interest in the concept Books On Bikes being expanded onto a national scale.
Another Page Turner : A New Book Fest
In other bookish news, Open Book Cape Town is a brand new literary festival for Cape Town that will take place 21 September – 25 September 2011. A partnership between The Book Lounge and Ben Williams, Publishing Director of BookSA, the festival includes, as a partner, The Hay Festival of Literature, responsible for Britain’s premier literary festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, plus events in Colombia, Mexico, Kenya, The Maldives, India, Ireland, Spain and London, England.
The event will see international and local literary contributors of caliber gather in Cape Town as well as enjoying participation from Equal Education, the organization behind the 1 School 1 Library 1 Librarian campaign, and the Cape Times.
In support, Cape Town Tourism’s executive manager for marketing, Lianne Burton, pointed out in a letter to the organizers that “Cape Town’s relatively untapped treasure is that we are a city of ideas, of creativity and culture, of diversity, of self expression, of freedom, and of fascinating people with compelling stories to tell. Our authors and academies are globally respected, and the potential to position Cape Town as a place of thought leadership and ideas-sharing is limitless.”
It seems we may have to update the adage, and judge a book by its Mother in 2011.
For more information on Open Book Cape Town, please contact Mervyn Sloman (021 462 2425 / mervyn@openbookfestival.co.za) or Ben Williams (021 434 4333 / ben@openbookfestival.co.za).
