Jennifer

In June 2020, the Mikhulu Trust ventured into new territory: online training for book-sharing facilitators. Ten librarians from the City of Cape Town attended this training - and now, as book-sharing facilitators, they have exciting visions on how this skill can impact their communities in the future. The challenges of lockdown Under normal circumstances, the Mikhulu Trust team heads out into Cape Town’s neighbourhoods to ‘teach teachers’ how to run book-sharing courses with parents and caregivers. A group of librarians had been lined up to receive book-sharing training to give to parents and caregivers visiting their libraries - but [...]

Moses, who lives in Gordon's Bay with his wife and two children, had no father figure to growing up. Lockdown has had an unexpected impact on his idea of fatherhood.There has been a ‘beautiful chemistry’ in his house, and book-sharing has been a key part of this. Moses encourages other fathers to follow suit. Moses is into 'breaking cycles'. He grew up with his mother and siblings in Soweto, Johannesburg. 'When my Mum got pregnant with me, my Dad ran away,' he explains. Life was not always easy, but he has always been aware of his desire to be an [...]

The Cadbury Dairy Milk Glass & a Half Project joins hands with Mikhulu Trust to distribute picture books to children.The Mikhulu Trust is excited to partner with the Cadbury Dairy Milk Glass & a Half Project to raise R1-million worth of educational toys, books and games, for orphaned and vulnerable children across South Africa. As a partner, our specially-designed and locally-illustrated books will be distributed to children’s homes where book-sharing is most needed.Lockdown has been particularly difficult for children living in care across South Africa as their access to education, volunteers and extra mural activities has been curbed. In response, a [...]

Mikhulu Trust is launching a four-part series during lock-down about book-sharing. Four of our specially-designed children’s books are being released online – with a short accompanying video on how to share this picture book with a child. Book-sharing is a great activity to do during Lock-down – and helps with child development. The series aims to show parents how to do to book-sharing with their child. This activity, in which caregiver and child enjoy wordless books together in an interactive way, is vital for a child’s development. Our specially-designed books are developed by academics and local illustrators. You can find all [...]

On the 13 February 2020 Inceba team organised their own refresher session on book-sharing before delivering sessions to parents. The refresher session was aimed at bringing all the implementing facilitator's back to the basics of delivering the book-sharing program. According to Jill, who is a facilitator, she states that the refresher session was so helpful for the team to review some of the fundamental techniques on book-sharing, to share new information on how to recruit parents and about the lesson learned from prior implementation.

Facilitators need to know when and how to make referrals when implementing book-sharing and other community programmes.When the Mikhulu Trust trains facilitators in our parenting programme, we also make sure that they are well equipped to deal with psychosocial problems that can affect parents. We know that parents and facilitators develop trusting and comfortable relationships. Parents may share their personal challenges or problems with the facilitator. Parents may need practical help, emotional support or access to services.Making sure that facilitators understand their role and stick to their scope of work can benefit any organisation. Facilitators are often not equipped to handle [...]

For ten weeks this winter, the Mikhulu Trust was the happy host to two fantastic interns, Anna Alstad and Tone Solberg. They worked closely with the training team to help us determine how to improve our training materials, including our training slides, handouts and flip charts. Hailing from Norway, Anna and Tone, found the transport in Cape Town somewhat challenging but flung themselves into their new environment wholeheartedly, bringing enthusiasm and energy to their task. They visited numerous book-sharing training sessions across the peninsula, observing and interviewing facilitators and caregivers to find out what works and what doesn't. And their [...]

During a routine support visit to Mfesane, Puseletso Mofokeng spoke to some parents participating in the book-sharing training. It's amazing to hear how this simple initiative can promote self-awareness about parenting practices. Nozuko Nkunzana shared her how the programme has boosted her confidence to share books with her child. "Before, when my daughter was little, every time she had a reading task from school she would ask me to assist her by reading with her. Most of the time her reading would be in Afrikaans and I cannot read in Afrikaans. So I would avoid her so [...]

During June and July, facilitators from Living Hope conducted an eight week session on the book-sharing programme with five mothers and their young children living in the Masiphumelele township in Cape Town, situated between Kommetjie, Capri Village and Noordhoek. These parents attended an hour and a half session each week. In each session a new book and different book-sharing technique was introduced. The mothers each had a chance to practice the skills they learned in the session before taking the books home. During the final session on 10 July 2019 there was a small graduation ceremony for the parents who [...]

“Few things make the life of a parent more rewarding and sweet as successful children.” - Nelson MandelaOn 18 July 2019, the Mikhulu Trust took part in the Mandela day programme hosted by Sikhula Sonke. This community celebration took place in Mew Way in Khayelitsha.Educare teachers and Sikhula Sonke Facilitators enjoying themselves doing ECD activities with local children. These included morning ring activities outside and paintings inside. The Mikhulu Trust had an opportunity to talk to parents about our work. Phumza Gqwaka briefly introduced the organisation and talked about our partnership with Sikhula Sonke. She also introduced book-sharing and afterwards asked [...]