An article by Cynthia Querido, recently published in the Cape Times

The Wonderful World of Shine

The wonderful world of Shine
I’ve travelled the world twice over
Met the famous: saints and sinners
Poets and artists, kings and queens
Old stars and hopeful beginners.

I’ve been where no-one’s been before
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books

Janice James

Familiar words. And it goes without saying that only by reading can we begin the journey, and that the only travel gear you need, apart from a library ticket, is literacy.

Elementary, my dear reader? Don’t be fooled. We who read with ease or have the choice as to whether we read at all; we whose children learn to read as naturally as they learn to walk, (so that we hardly notice) should not take this for granted. These are the lucky learners whose needs are served. For haven’t all we moms and dads been through the bedtime-story ritual, the homework saga? But for millions this is not the case: those who sit in crowded classrooms, whose teachers’ nerves and capacities are stretched beyond the limit, and who return to equally stressed environments where learning is neither nurtured nor reinforced. Too often it is simply not an issue because there are so many more pressing issues, so many dire distractions.

But now a ray of sunlight shines across a few Peninsula schools and some who struggle with literacy have the fuel to start that journey. And I am privileged to be one of those particles of light. Each Tuesday, two eager 8-year olds are brought to me in the Shine Programme Centre’s ‘Shine Room’ at Prestwich Primary School, and I continue to be astounded by their lack of literacy. If they’re lagging behind in Grade 2, how in the world – this fast-paced world - will they ever embark on those journeys that a love of literacy facilitates: journeys toward knowledge, journeys that trigger new interests and inspire one to reach for dreams. Nor underestimate the pleasure cruise that a good escapist read may offer. And if they battle to get a grasp, how many other influences are waiting to whisk them off to less benign worlds.

Founded and directed by Maurita Weissenberg, the Shine Centre Programme aims to form a partnership between children and volunteers in a warm, nurturing environment, in an endeavour to bring them up to speed. The camaraderie between the volunteers, who represent an amazing cross section of the literate population, is just one of the incidental joys of a group whose motivation is the sheer joy of giving.

Each lesson is carefully structured and before we read, we start with the stepping stones: game playing, finger puppets, articulating sounds, writing out letters, repeating the beginning and end letters: d-d-d-d, g-g-g-g-g, d-o-g, lotto word games – it’s that involved! It is only during the second half-hour, that we get down to the business of books and then we read together. And every book is a journey no matter how short or simple –a peep into another home, a trip to a different city, to the beach, a farmyard, or maybe around our bodies. Slowly, slowly at the learner’s own pace … as long as there’s pace, no matter how many sessions it takes, we will get there. Powered by Shine, they will become literate. They say ‘give me a child until he is seven’. Shine takes them from eight when there’s still sufficient flexibility to turn them into readers.

There is no doubt that Shine’s efforts will be rewarded. Maybe someday these will be the writers of the future; maybe their books will be reviewed on this very page, or, given the changing times in which we live, its incarnation.

This is the wonderful world of ‘Shine’.
Cynthia Querido