“Hi Sonja. All is in order except that I Have 2 extra students?”
An email with this message arrived in my inbox with less than 24 hours to go.
2 extra students = 2 extra goodie bags = 2 extra tickets = urgh!
When I got over the initial calculation of the extra work and communication around this, it hit me that we had two young people who were not accepting ‘no’ for an answer to attending this year’s Open Book Festival (OBF). As far as problems go, this was a good one…
So, 17 students from False Bay College Khayelitsha and 15 students from False Bay College Fish Hoek joined FunDza on Wednesday, 6 September 2017, at this year’s festival together with four of their lecturers. Mervyn Sloman and Frankie Murrey of OBF provided us with complimentary tickets. One of the four major elements to the OBF vision is “..to make a significant and sustainable contribution to our future by building a love of reading and books among the youth of Cape Town.”
Because of this generosity 32 students had the chance to attend three panels each. Panels like the Women’s Manifesto. On this panel three dynamic authors, Gabeba Baderoon, Buhle Ngaba and Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese reflected on how the Women’s Manifesto – a document that insists on the connection between freedom and writing – speaks to their own experience as women.
Students were mesmerised by the very charismatic Sindiwe Magona together with Francis Wilson who spoke with Mervyn Sloman about the process of translating Dinosaurs, Diamonds and Democracy into isiXhosa. The students all fell in love with mama Sindiwe!
Some students opted to attend a panel where poets Toni Stuart and Stephen Symons unpacked their usage of words and images. At the same time there were some of us who chose to sit at the feet of the great Jonathan Jansen, together with Scaachi Koul and Ashley Makue as they spoke about the mothers in their writing.
We met, engaged with and were enraptured by the likes of Thandeka Gqubule, Nathan Hill, Scaachi Koul (an outspoken Canadian blogger) and Marianne Thamm – author, columnist, satirist, and the assistant editor of Daily Maverick who describes herself as “half-Portuguese, half-German, recovering Roman Catholic atheist lesbian immigrant”.
One of the other elements of OBF is to draw representative audiences to all Open Book events. We were very proud to be there in the company of so many young readers. These students are all part of our Reading for Enjoyment Campaign which aims to get young people to read for their own personal enjoyment. The feedback we received afterwards highlights that reading is not part of everyone’s daily life.
“We really appreciate the contribution you are making in the lives of young people. Yesterday it was evident that our students are not really cultured into appreciating books, but the opportunity you presented to them to be exposed to such an environment will definitely make a difference.” ~ Lungiswa Guzana – False Bay College Khayelitsha lecturer
“The students loved it and plan to write some feedback once returning after the exams. I find it such an enriching experience as it gets students out of their normal surroundings and exposes them to people and thoughts and life experiences they might not necessarily be exposed to. They were buzzing in the bus on the way home! They also put in some requests for books they saw at the festival.” ~ Sean Butler False Bay College Fish Hoek lecturer
Yes. Having two extra students was definitely a healthy problem to have. Thank you, Open Book Festival, for all the support and help in making this day happen!