A reading culture, plays a crucial role not only in promoting a generation of free and creative thinkers, but is also an important tool in social- economic and political development. Firstly, literacy facilitates people to communicate information, stories and events to each other. So, when we talk of the power of literacy, it’s more than understanding the vocabulary and syntax of a written message. Critical reading entails the reader to perceive the purpose of the message and appreciate the context that it was conceived in. Literacy without critical understanding of the message is nothing more than noise in our ears! In this case teachers have the responsibility to help children/students understand that biases and perceptions of the world are fundamental to the messages that are expressed. Such biases need to be identified and examined for their impact on the individual, society and the world at large. In early literacy programs, children should be exposed to moral lessons through stories that are intended to direct them to live successful and productive lives. They should be given short informational books that tell them the science and history of the society and the world around them. In addition, more often books for young readers are accompanied by vital illustrations that often say more than the words on the page. Exposing the child to the power of literacy at an earliest age plays a vital role in the choices such a person makes later in his/her adult life. Accordingly, teachers and publishers should control the sort of literature our children get exposed to. For example in Rwandan context, we should focus on children’s literature that addresses topics such as peace, unity, reconciliation, gender equity, environmental conservation, reproductive health education paying attention to HIV/AIDS and other issues that shape the youth such as children’s rights among other themes. If such approach is used and reading is emphasized, it will equip young people with life skills necessary to help them cope with their body changes as adolescents, as well as skills to resist peer pressure from friends. The obvious benefits are that this helps our children to make informed decisions when they are still young and later on in life when they are adults, consequently making them responsible citizens. To illustrate this point further, I will focus on how reading can help in promoting HIV/ADS awareness campaign amongst the young generation. Given our culture where sex and sexual related activities largely remain a taboo. Parents still hold a strong taboo against talking about sexual matters with their children and on the other hand, religious leaders also tend to talk about HIV/AIDS as retribution for sin rather than as a health and social matter that everyone faces. In addition the stigma some adults still place on HIV/AIDS effectively blocks communication with young people. It is not surprising therefore; some studies have shown that parents and religious leaders provide the least important sources of information for the young people (AMREF, technical briefing paper (September, 2004), A Better Fate For Young People). As a teacher, I have also held discussions with my students on one hand, and talked to parents about their role in educating their children on HIV/AIDS on the other hand. Drawing from this experience of both students and parents, the facts indicate that it’s hard for the majority of parents to discuss with their children facts on HIV/AIDS in an open and straight forward manner. The major source of information for our children is learning from their friends and peers, and they might often get misleading and incorrect information. If this observation is true, then some strategies have to be in place to offset this crucial information gap that exists amongst our children. As such one of the probable models of disseminating information on HIV/ AIDS to our children would be through the use of books, which can only be effective if the culture of reading is promoted in Schools. For example it would be easy for a parent to discuss facts about HIV/AIDS with a child who has read a book, whose character misbehaved and contracted the disease- it would be easy for such a parent to point out situations from the book. Since HIV/AIDS still remains a big challenge, there might be no single strategy to counter act against its spread but rather a combination of different strategies. As such using the power of literacy would be one strategy that would promote HIV/ AIDS awareness campaign amongst the young generation notably the school children. The argument could go on and on but the long and short of it all is that the benefits of promoting a reading culture are immense. Moral lessons learnt in a given book/text could equip a person, especially the youth with necessary life skills to make positive choices and informed decisions in their lives. A reading culture would contribute to healthy behavior and help our children resist peer pressure and avoid risky situations in life. The author is an Educationist, and the founder of Rwanda Book Development Initiative. rwabodirwanda@yahoo.com To be continued in the next issue of the Sunday times.
