Sihle Duncan Sibiya, who is one of the City of Johannesburg’s librarians based at Bosmont Library, won a storytelling competition run by the reading development nongovernmental organisation Nalibali. The competition required participants to submit three-minute videos telling stories in their indigenous languages. The videos are available on the Nalibali YouTube channel. Sihle won a R500 Takealot voucher for reading a story in isiZulu as part of the competition.
The NaliBali competition is similar to the Joburg Libraries digital storytelling video series where librarians are encouraged to submit videos reading stories in different local languages.
Over 80 stories have been shared on the Joburg Libraries Facebook.
“It’s an honour to win this competition because it encourages me to keep on delivering stories to our patrons in my language using digital technology,” said Sihle Sibiya
Sihle has also introduced children to other reading programmes such as using the Google app called Read Along for primary schools at Bosmont.
City libraries have other programmes that are aimed at encouraging reading such as the battle of the books and story skirmish, which are a book-based inter-school knockout competitions for pupils in primary school.
They also offer children’s corner, where librarians read books to children on weekends or school holidays.
Written by Ayanda Radebe
16/11/2023