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PRAESA receives the 2015 Astrid Lindgren
Memorial Award |
Release: Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award,
March 31, 2015 |
Based in Cape Town, PRAESA, Project for the Study
of Alternative Education in South Africa, is an organisation
that has worked to promote reading and literature for children
and young people in South Africa since 1992. The Jury’s Citation
reads:
With the joy of reading as its compass point, PRAESA opens new
routes into the world of books and literature for young readers
in South Africa. Through innovative reading and storytelling
projects, PRAESA brings people together and brings literature in
multiple languages alive. PRAESA’s outstanding work shows the
world the crucial role of books and stories in creating rich,
full lives for our children and young people.
For more than twenty years, PRAESA has made powerful, innovative
moves to highlight literature as a key component of both
personal and societal development, always grounded in the
specific conditions of South African society and culture. Its
work focuses on encouraging children to read for enjoyment,
building their self-esteem, and helping them connect to their
native language through reading and story.
PRAESA has three core goals: to provide children with
high-quality literature in the various South African languages;
to collaborate with and foster new networks among publishers and
organisations that promote reading; and to initiate and carry
out activities that can help sustain a living culture of reading
and storytelling in socially vulnerable communities. PRAESA
works in constant dialogue with the latest research and in
collaboration with volunteers at the grass roots level.
To encourage children to read in their native languages, PRAESA
produced the Little Hands books, a series of short books in
different African languages. Another project, the Vulindlela
Reading Club, combined oral storytelling with reading, singing
games, and dramatizations, and led to the formation of many more
reading clubs in Cape Town and other provinces. The national
reading promotion initiative Nal’ibali is a network of reading
clubs that uses media campaigns to encourage children to read
and inspire parents, grandparents, and teachers to read with
them.
In 2014, PRAESA received the Asahi Reading Promotion Award, a
prize instituted by the International Board on Books for Young
People, IBBY.
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