The SBA’s focus on bringing functional literacy to every Afrikaans user has entered a new platform by transforming its first children’s book, Die Kokerboom, a Christmas story into an animated film.
The original story was written in 2015 by Danish author Klavs Skovsholm. In partnership with the SBA, the story has been specially adapted for the South African audience and translated into Afrikaans.
The SBA’s aim with the storybook was to foster a love of reading among young learners and guide them to read for leisure on their own. Therefore, the book was also enriched with coloring pages and then translated into isiXhosa, English, Khoekhoegowab, Sesotho and Kiswahili.
An abridged version of the book has been printed in all 11 official languages.
The decision to turn the quiver tree book into an animated film came after the SBA learned that some of the learners at Langerug school in Worcester could not read the story due to learning disabilities.
At the same time, the SBA’s focus on digitization expanded and was the ideal opportunity to animate the book. Martinus van Tee, who drew the coloring pages for the book, also developed the animated film.
The animated film is ten minutes long with newly created music to give the story greater impact than just words. With this animated film, the SBA wants to ensure that all learners’ functional literacy is expanded and that they keep pace with the time of technological preference among the young people.
The SBA has also published two other children’s books, Fatima and Robbie the Rough Rat, which will soon be shown as animated films.
The story books are available as digital reading and coloring books on the SBA app, SBA Reading. It is also available for free download at https://sbafrikaans.co.za/
The SBA is a non-profit organization that focuses on functional literacy development and teaching support. Our projects are presented annually within a specific geographical focus, mainly in the rural areas of the Western and Northern Cape.
