Our reading club "Storiehoek" is moving

All children in Paternoster know - Thursday is Storiehoek Day! Since 2017, the reading club has been part of our life skills program in Paternoster. This project builds on the spirited initiative of writer and founding director of Tip Afrika Publishing Dr. Joan Kruger, who had offered reading lessons for the children at St. Augustine's Primary School long before we got involved. Together with her, a number of local volunteers and our volunteers, we read to the children every Thursday after lunch and they are encouraged to read or read aloud themselves. An important contribution to the promotion of reading in a country that sadly brings up the rear in an international comparison when it comes to reading skills!

 

Thanks to a number of generous donations from publishers and private individuals, our library has now grown to include hundreds of children's books, novels and exciting non-fiction books that had to find a new home when we moved out of our "Hoopsig-House" Life Skills Center. Luckily, the Paternoster Community Public Library provides us with a room for our reading club and after school care for two hours each afternoon! As long as our new Life Skills Center is not yet completed, not only will all our books find a good place here, we will also be provided with tables and chairs where the children can read and work for the school. Despite the move, our volunteers, such as volunteer reading mentors, will continue to use every opportunity to read to the children on the beach or as part of other activities and to patiently and constantly motivate them to read freely, which is so important.