Do you read me?

When I read a book, I really get into it.

I might not be able to pass a quiz on the minute details once im done, but its not unusual for me to subject a friend to a personal reading of a few 'beautiful lines I stumbled across' and take the moment very seriously.


The other day after reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun a second time , I thought back to when I really got interested in books.


I must have been about 9 years when I was caught in a reading frenzy fuelled by an obsession with Mallory Towers, The twins at St Claire and drum roll, Sweet Valley Middle School (only the most exciting book series ever). I don’t know what it is like now, in the age of the Ipod, Nintendo wii, Playstation, Sky plus and DSTV, but at that age reading was considered by us to be quite cool. I had a mini library in my class and I read every single book that came into it. I could not wait to get home to finish whatever book it was I was reading at the time.

Now,..what I didn’t know at the time was that reading was actually doing me some good. I was improving my vocabulary, my spelling was ranked top 3 in my class, and I was learning about how people lived in different countries, developing my sense of imagination, etc. without much effort.

My basic education had been met before I discovered and fell in love with English Literature. It had to have been! Thats the catch. I needed to be able to read with ease to enjoy the books.
Also the books had to have been within my reach.

I shall return to this...

Some home truths..
Living in Lagos you become aware that there are many cracks in the education system.
On my way to school I passed dilapidated state schools, flooded school surroundings and very basic building structures.

The State Government is rebuilding some schools and working on some changes for the better to fix some of these problems.

But..
Everyday in schools that do not receive the attention and resources they desperately need, another child leaves the education system forever, or perhaps more frustratingly, is in it but not getting the quality of education they need for all the hard earned money spent and hours toiling, to be able to make better of themselves.

For our first project WLFF wants to touch the lives of students who attend the private schools that take in students who do not go to the state schools, but cannot afford attend the big expensive private schools either - the poor private schools. We were inspired by a report by Professor James Tooley.

And these schools are littered around Lagos. They are the small colourfully painted homes cum ‘Aunty Funmi’ school type buildings and the even smaller ones in rudimentary structures.

Back to reading..
Maslow’s hierarchy has been drilled into me over the years at secondary school and uni, and it does relate to a lot of things. You 5 different categories of need and you can only meet need number two if you have satisfied number one and number 3 if number 4 has been covered etc.

If you have not met your basic education needs, there will be a number things that you will not be able to achieve; but once those basic needs are met, you are open to bigger and better things.
This is our dream for our education projects. The children are now getting a good basic education at the poor private schools, now are thinking is, what else would open a new chapter in their lives?

Perhaps reading for pleasure will inspire and encourage them. Good too if it subconsciously improves their spelling and grammar.

If we can stock up a library, get even just one student reading and becoming passionate about English literature, that child could go on to become the second Nobel prize for literature winner from Nigeria, or he/she could continue through the ranks of education and fulfil their aspirations whether in the field of English or not.

Reading is not the only way. It is not all of the answer. But it is a start.

WDYT..(what do you think)
I was reading the paper in Lagos over Christmas and there was an article about the literary scene in Nigeria on the back of Aditchies Orange prize win. The article drew attention to the fact that not many adult Nigerians actively read and the lack of existence of bestsellers lists, book store chains, etc.

I dont know the extent to which the above is true but beyond the authors that transcend the nigerian barriers... Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri and some of the newbies, which other nigerian authors do you kow that are celebrated in Nigeria!?

With Love..x.