Songstress Simphiwe Dana and poet Lebo Mashile are among the inspirational figures who have thrown their weight behind the Big Read campaign, which is being launched in South Africa on June 16.
The Big Read is a collection of short stories and poems that contains a selection of stories from people from around the world encouraging young people to read and highlights the need for greater access to quality education.
Since being launched in April this year it has been read by more than 13 million people worldwide.
In addition to Simphiwe’s story The Sun Chaser and Lebo’s poem ABCs, The Big Read includes stories of education and struggles to learn from the likes of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Queen Rania of Jordan, authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Alice Walker, as well as Natalie Portman, Gcina Mhlope, Basetsana Khumalo and many others.
The June 16 launch coincides with Youth Day and aims to raise awareness of the obstacles preventing access to quality education, particularly in the developing world.
Says Mashile of the new struggle: “The enemy isn’t really clear in the way it was before. It’s an incredibly sensitive, complicated struggle with many dimensions, but the site for that struggle is inside … The language of poetry comes from a place where that transformation has to begin, that sort of intuitive, creative, spiritual searching place that will be the fuel for any kind of transformation process.”
The Big Read is an initiative of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), an organisation that aims to increase public participation in education in a creative way, and its distribution in South Africa is co-ordinated by the Public Participation in Education Network (PPEN).
The Big Read book is available to everyone via the website www.ppen.org.za. Readers are encouraged to add their name to the call to action at the back of the book, and share the book before passing it on to others.