Reading Culture Promotion

Promoting and Nurturing

Reading Culture in Uganda

Project Proposal

1.1         Status of Reading

Searching, the internet, for ‘reading culture in Uganda’, one finds that the New Vision is populated witha good number of articleswith authors agonizing about the appalling levels of reading culture in Uganda.Cross-cutting all thosearticles, is the common knowledge that good reading culture isone of the factors that foster the society’s socio-economic, political and technologicalgrowth and development. However, the problem ofappalling levels of reading culture in Uganda is best voiced out by Prof. George W. Kanyeihamba in his latest publishedbook, “The blessings and joy of being who you are (2011)”, in which he decries that:

“Unfortunately, Uganda, like many other countries, especially in the so-called developing world, does not have a reading culture. People who do not read, analyze, appreciate and be guided by what is written or published are doomed in the present world of science, technology and innovations. Millions of books, journals, periodicals and newspapers on current affairs, better methods of governance and development are available in Uganda or elsewhere, but very few citizens know of them and even those who know hardly ever bother to read them, let alone have the curiosity to find out what is in them. A nation which is characterized by those phenomena of illiteracy is doomed to be retarded in the modern world of technology and science”(p.394).

Unlike those others who have expressed concernaboutthepoor reading culture in Uganda by merelyagonizing, IKEG has answers for correcting the situation.IKEG intends to arouse the citizen's consciousness about reading for social, economical and technological advancement attending to the youths’ job creation and unemployment challenges. Special emphasis will constitute engaging the youth to read widely for their socio-economicand technological growth and developmentfor wealth creation—reckoning that youth unemployment is currently Uganda’s grand socio-economic challenge. That is to say that if the call to the unemployed youth is to engage into poultry, piggery, fish farming, name it, thenthis reading culture promotion programme will, emphatically,feature books on those avocations.

The method which IKEGhas sought to use to engage the targeted youth contingents, especially, students in secondary schools, tertiary institutions and universities; school leavers and university and college graduates as well as authors of books; books publishers is the popular one that has been used in the developing and industrialized counties of“Get Paid to Test Products”—“Where you get paid for reading a book”in the ‘Mobile Literacy Drive’ and Live TV–Talk Show programmes.

1.2     Project Objectives

  (a)        To sensitize the community about the value of reading in one’s and community transformation;

  (b)        To educate the community about effective reading skills and sources of knowledge for development;

1.3     Project Description

(a)  “Mobile Literacy Drive”. The drive will comprise books with themes selected to touch community lives with a crew- visiting communities in their localities within Kampala City. Part of the crew will involve prominent personalities reading for the communities and posing questions on how the read books provide solutions to community challenges including youth and unemployment. The drive is intended to promote reading and is targeting communities such as students in secondary schools, tertiary institutions and universities; school leavers and university and college graduates—challenging them to read ear-marked books that will lead to their personal positive growth and development that are attendant to employment opportunities and that is geared towards job creation;

(b)  Live TV talk-show programme:

                 i)      Discussion - involving invited guests, especially, drawn from authors of books, educationists, book publishers and others.  

                ii)      Electrifying quiz with viewers calling in live to win prizes by answering questions that test knowledge of themes in the early-on-ear-marked books.