Concerned residents in Mkushi District have appealed to the Ministry of Information and Media to consider resuming the publication and distribution of local language newspapers and magazines.
Presenting the appeal, Charles Chanda of Show Grounds residential area said that there is still high demand for local language tabloids called “Imbila” that the Ministry previously distributed through ZANIS (Zambia News and Information Services).
Mr Chanda said that the demand for these publications is high in both urban and remote parts of the District.
He said that these tabloids were serving a critical role of enlightening residents about Government policies, as well as incorporating feedback from residents on various topics.
He said that apart from this, these newspapers were impacting positively on the quest to raise literacy levels, particularly in remote areas.
Mr Chanda, who is an ex-ZCCM (Zambia Consolidated Copper Mine) employee, charged that the reading culture is generally low in most of the communities, adding that the situation is worsened by the absence of a public library.
“There is need for a public library in order to encourage reading culture, research and general knowledge amongst residents of all ages”, he said.
He said that apart from this, there is need to consider resuscitating the literacy classes program that was previously jointly facilitated by Ministry of education and the department of community development.
“These literacy classes used to help in raising the reading culture amongst elders and the young who had been illiterate before this intervention”, he commented.
Mr C why dont you fill the gap and start producing the same and make some money you can be impowered to get a small printing machine and employ printers, distributors and marketers time for looking to grz to provide is long gone
As a journalist myself, I totally support Mathew’s suggestion. It is something that the new dawn government should look at seriously. Vernacular newspapers such as Tsopano , Liseli, Imbila and others played an important role in informing the people, especially those in the rural areas, about what the government was doing. The content also included folktales and other games popular among the people in a particular area. In 2006, I was privileged to be hired by the then ruling party MMD under Mwanawasa to run a campaign newspaper in eight vernacular languages, including Lenje. The project was a huge success and certainly helped Mwanawasa secure a second term as president, although he was not to complete it following his demise in 2008. Surely,if MMD did it “why can’t UPND did it”?
I agree with that thoughtful suggestion, let people who have money manage such important publications I mean people must promote reading in our Zambian local languages, than just rushing for this foreign language and kill our own languages.
Very soon there will be a crisis with our languages since our children will be failing to read their own mother languages and it is a shameful thing to do.