THE Livingstone City Council has called for concerted efforts to address the problem of a poor reading culture in the country.
Livingstone City Council Public Relations Manager Emmanuel Sikanyika noted that most people in Zambia had a poor reading culture and called for collective efforts from various stakeholders to address the problem.
Mr Sikanyika cited the Livingstone City Council Library, Livingstone Museum and Railway Museum as some of the important places that had vast literature in Zambia’s Tourist Capital but they were rarely visited.
He was speaking in Livingstone on Sunday afternoon when he launched three books written by a group of Zambian writers.
The books, which were launched by Lilato Publishers and Production in partnership with the Livingstone Press Club and Musitunya Literacy Theatre, are ‘Is This Real Love’ by Munyinda Nambula as well as ‘Crashed Hopes Revived’ by Musialike Kufanga Nasilele and ‘Keron’s Poetry Book’ by Keron Lubinda.
“It is sadly said that the best way to hide something in Zambia is by putting it inside a book and that item won’t be noticed.
“It will be difficult to have well-informed and articulate citizens when such people don’t take time to read,” Mr Sikanyika said.
He urged all Livingstone residents and Zambians at large to embrace a good culture of reading to enhance education and development in the country.
Mr Sikanyika further urged young people to avoid engaging in immoral activities and concentrate on their education to assure them of a better future.
“Our young people today are faced with many challenges of teenage pregnancies, early marriages, clubbing, smoking as well as drug and alcohol abuse among others which are negatively affecting their education and other future prospects.
“It is worrying these days to have a lot of child-headed homes which are unable to sustain themselves,” Mr Sikanyika said.
And Mr Munyinda, who started writing books in 2013, urged more young people to write more books to document their progressive ideas.
“Writing has been very cardinal to me over the last few years because I have always wanted to write books that talk about real life issues,” Mr Nambula said.
Musitunya Literacy Club patron Teddy Mulenga urged the media to expose many Zambian writers to encourage more locals to write books.
Dr Mulenga, who is also a writer and a retired medical doctor, noted that most Zambian writers were not promoted in the media.
In their presentation during the launch, the Livingstone Press Club urged writers to uphold media ethics in their writing as irresponsible writing could cause harm to society.
The Club challenged writers to take time to understand various national laws that works against the Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media to avoid publishing defamatory and corrupt information.
….and because we don’t read, we can’t/don’t write….and therefore we rely on foreign nationals, esp the West, to write for us and in the process dictate to us our past, present and future….and we swallow everything they write as gospel truth.
I know my posting is not related to the topic at hand. But i was just thinking the following :
1. if the so called illegal ministers that were ordered to pay back whatever perks they accrued after the dissolution of parliament could get together as a group.
2. Each and every one of them make contributions each of K10000. If their monthly salaries were K70,000 (K10,000 is not much)
3. For arguments sake if they were forty(40) that would be 40 x K10000 (K 400,000)
My point is that it would not be difficult to convince the three infamous constitutional court judges to accept the K400,000 and overturn the judgement of the Ministers staying in office illegally.
The Ministers involved should seriously consider my proposal. Tuma Jugdes tuja situvuta!
Is this meant for Mugeni Mulenga!!
How will that happen when you can close down Newspapers?
What is this now?
Read the whole article and you will understand..
Do constitution court judges call themselves learned colleagues also? They represent the miseduction of the educated.
Very impressed with Livingstone City Council of late, please keep it up….its a shame that our govts would rather construct buildings like the House Of Prayer waste millions of dollars and construct football stadia we only use once a month than construct Public libraries for our children and adults as well to read and most importantly to study about self.
The Constitution is another clear example of this selfsame poor reading in our society.