The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mhlanga, Sunday Life Reporter
ANTHU Foundation, a non-profit organisation last week donated books to St Columbu’s High School and Robert Tredgold Primary School.
The organisation engaged in a book drive for the first time in June and collected about 150 books including novels, motivational story books and children’s books from well-wishers. The founder and chairperson of the organisation, Lionel Muchirahondo, told this publication that the book drive was a great experience.
“We had a great experience while doing the book drive, it is something that is very popular in other countries so we thought we can also do it for our community and we are grateful for the support we got from well-wishers. I hope that next time we have another book drive we will collect more books within a short period of time,” said Lionel.
Muchirahondo stated that empowering the youth is one of their major objectives and they have a lot lined up for the youth.
“Donating to schools is one of our objectives which is to empower the youth through education, skills development, active citizenry and counselling. We have a couple of initiatives lined up that will help the youth grow and enhance their culture and native language, therefore the book drive helped us fulfil that objective as this means an addition to the books that the school library had hence giving students a wide range of books to choose from.
“We have a lot of initiatives lined up for students and we will be working with three high schools namely Sobukazi High School, Mzilikazi High School and St Columbu’s High School. We will be hosting the following initiatives, that is the Mannequin Art Challenge for O-level students on 27 September, IsiNdebele spelling Bee for Form Twos on 28 September and the Debate in IsiNdebele Competition that will be held on 5 October, we received sponsorship from Mzansi Express that will help us cover the expenses for the logistics.
“The purpose of these initiatives is firstly for the mannequin art challenge under the theme ‘Africa through my eyes’ which is to provide participants with an opportunity to express and showcase their artistic skills and to springboard art as a possible career. And the purpose for both the spelling bee and debate in IsiNdebele is to improve learners’ skills associated with good spelling habits, expand learners’ vocabulary and encourage correct usage and pronunciation of isiNdebele words as well as encourage them to be more involved in extra curriculum activities that stimulate cultural pride,” he added.
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