Business must partner with government to improve literacy stats
VOLKSWAGEN Community Trust manager Vernon Naidoo speaks to Carla Lever in this Q & A.
What role do you think corporates can play in making meaningful change in South Africa?
Most corporates are trusted because of the brands they represent. They have power in the form of leverage and resources.
Government will never be able to fully turn the South African ship around – there’s a shortage of resources and skills, not to mention a lot of red tape!
Meaningful change can be achieved though – we just need government, media, NGOs and corporates to work together.
Education is one of VW’s target areas for giving back. Why does VW feel so strongly about this?
The aim of VW is to ensure that every 10-year-old child in Uitenhage will be able to read with comprehension and write. In fact, we’ve been in the education space for more than 30 years – we believe it’s one of the key ingredients to true freedom.
In comparison with Africa and the world, South Africa ranks low on the literacy (reading with comprehension) scale. Volkswagen, together with the Department of Education and other stakeholders, want to be part of the solution to change this statistic.
You partner with literacy NGO Nal’ibali on an exciting project in Uitenhage. What does it involve?
Volkswagen funds story supplements in newspapers across the country.
In the Nelson Mandela Bay area, Nal’ibali has been tasked to set up Reading Clubs in schools and communities. Since books are so expensive, the reading supplement is utilised in the schools.
Grade 2 and 3 pupils are paired together – we call this the Book Buddy system. Each child is given a container (ice cream tub works well) with 30 stories in it. These stories are cut out from the supplement. We call this the “mobile library” because the children take it home and can read a story wherever they are.
That’s great because if there is one ‘magic bullet’ solution to the education challenges South Africa is facing, studies seem to suggest it is books. Yet very few books are available in the mother tongue languages spoken by most people in this country. Why do you feel reading is an important part of education?
I feel that reading with comprehension is the key to education.
This enables the young person to grasp concepts and skills. It will also assist them to think critically and to develop their reasoning skills.
If you can’t read, this automatically excludes you from many things but especially from participating in the economy.
VW also seeks to encourage a volunteer culture in its staff as a way of giving back at a personal level. Have there been any particularly interesting staff campaigns with education?
Absolutely! As part of our Employee Volunteerism, we recruited staff to read to pupils from five schools. We bussed in the pupils to the VW People’s Pavilion Hall.
The other campaign we ran was for every staff member to donate a book. These were donated to schools.
Through this, VW has placed reading corners in all the schools that we work in. Our follow-up studies showed those pupils with reading corners in the class fared significantly better than those without, so we feel this is making a real difference.
What’s your challenge to other South African businesses, large or small?
As VWSA, we cannot do this alone. We have an annual literacy conference in Uitenhage – it would be a great idea if someone from another organisation could attend and share insights. We can all work on this together. We can change that low South African statistic!
Let’s partner, because in this space there is no competition!
From Sunday April 15, Nal’ibali will be publishing its supplements in two new languages. An English-Setswana edition will be published in the Sunday World in the North West, and an English-Xitsonga edition will be donated to reading clubs in Limpopo.
Clubs in both provinces will collect their copies from selected post offices.
The post offices (10 in each province) will also have 50 additional editions each to give away to members of the public.