Festival highlights importance of reading |08 April 2015

“The Reading Festival 2015 reminds us all of the importance of reading. It will also revitalise our desire to read and impress upon the younger generations that reading is enjoyable and enriching in so many ways.”

The Minister for Education Macsuzy Mondon said this when officially launching the Reading Festival 2015 at Espace building yesterday.

The one-week festival is being held under the theme ‘Nou tou pour lektir’, ‘All for reading’, ‘Tous pour la lecture’. It is aimed at promoting the importance of reading not only among learners but also the public at large across different forms and in the three national languages.

Activities at Espace for the festival include a general exhibition, book sale, poetry and story reading sessions, e-book tent, scavenger hunt, book donations, light musical entertainment, bookmark competitions, origami making through reading of instructions. Other activities have also been proposed by schools and at school level itself all focused on reading and books.

Partners involved in the event are the Creole Institute, Seychelles Tourism Board (STB), Emmanuel Doffay from Vir Paz bookshop, National Council for Children, Potpourri magazine, National Library, Seychelles Institute of Teacher Education (Site), Bible Society of Seychelles, Librarie St Fidele, Antigone, Chanterelle bookshop, School of Visual Arts, School of the Exceptional Child, Espace management, Ivan Joseph, Marie-Helene Adrienne.
The Indian high commissioner Sanjay Panda and Margaret Maillet of the Bible Society of Seychelles each donated books on behalf of the Indian high commission and the society respectively.

Elaborating on the theme, Minister Mondon said it is an attempt to encapsulate the message to one and all about reading.
She said the launch of the Reading Festival is always a special occasion and a reminder of how being literate enriches the minds, the lives of our children and the lives of others in our society.

“The theme ‘Reading for all’ could not be more fitting for this first Reading Festival as not only does it focus on promoting reading, but it also signifies a lot more. It is about celebrating our achievements in our quest for a literate society. It is about paying tribute to all who had discovered the benefits that reading brings and making reading an integral part of their lives. It is about recreating the desire and passion for reading,” she said.

She noted that the theme promotes the magic of books which have been the treasure hunt of knowledge and that knowledge is power.

She said the Reading Festival not only replaces the Reading Week that used to be an annual event on the education calendar in past years, but it also add impetus to this past event by taking the importance of reading and being literate to greater heights.

The minister went on to mention various inspiring quotes relating to reading like the famous one “Reading is to the mind as exercise is to our body”.

She also urged parents to encourage reading in children and the young people to strike the right balance between reading and technology.

The launch was animated by poems and short drama by primary and secondary students, as well as testimonies by teachers all based on the importance of reading.

On the national level, a symposium on the challenges and opportunities in reading in the three national languages has been planned for Thursday at the Espace conference room.