Rwandans must work hard to shun the oral traditional culture by encouraging children to read a variety of books not only in schools but also at home.

The call was made by Julienne Uwacu, the minister for sports and culture, during the launch of ‘Children Readership Preferences Study’ organised by Save the Children Rwanda last week.

Minister Uwacu called on development partners, including publishers, and the community in general, to play their part in engaging children to adopt the reading culture while government also puts in place the necessary environment that will support this cause.

"Shifting from oral tradition to a reading culture could take long, but I am confident that having so many partners in this sector shows the importance it carries. Maybe we need a better structural framework to ensure no duplication of activities by the players,” she said.

A study was conducted by a USAID-funded project, ‘Mureke Dusome,’ between June and November where researchers took time to observe the in-depth understanding of children’s reading preferences and the factors that influence it to better help publishers know suitable story books in further publications ahead.

The study was conducted in Kicukiro, Ngororero, Burera and Gicumbi districts and it covered urban areas, semi-urban and rural areas, targeting children, parents and community members who know what the children really like and what they don’t while reading story books thanks to ‘passionate’ local publishers’ great work in publishing interesting books.

Findings from the four districts show that the majority of children in the country live in rural areas and should be considered of low exposure to reading materials.

"I think all of us, the government and development partners, need to make sure of the increasing accessibility to quality story books that are relevant to children’s interest,” said Sofia Cozzolino, the technical advisor at Mureke Dusome project, adding that the readership culture will surely succeed if they continue to work with different book publishers.

Researchers recommend that publishers should consider writing more books that will resonate with the locals by writing more stories that are set in rural Rwanda to engage their rural audience.

The study also calls for parental engagement in encouraging students to adopt reading culture while at home.

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