This September, the nation will experience the thrilling joy of books as the SABDC continues to call on individuals, families and corporates to Buy-A-Book during National Book Week from 7-13 September.

It is during this week that the SABDC, in partnership with the Department of Arts and Culture, celebrates National Book Week with the themes #GOINGPLACES and #BUYABOOK

South Africans will see the National Book Week tour bus stopping in five provinces; namely, Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape from 07-13 September 2015.

Join the movement and make South Africa a reading nation and bring more books to households across our country.

“Having as few as 20 books in the home has a significant impact in propelling a child to higher levels of education,” says a 20-year study across 27 countries.”

It is said that more than half of South African households do not have a single leisure reading book in their home.

A study conducted by the South African Development Council (SABDC), the conveners of National Book Week, revealed that only about 14% of South Africans read books and only a mere 5% of that read to their children. The study also found that 51% of households in South Africa do not have a single book in their home. This is central to the BuyABook campaign and why we started it.

To mitigate these troubling statistics, National Book Week – the longest running and most successful reading promotion campaign in South Africa – introduced the “Buy-A-Book Campaign,” with the aim to see more books in South African homes, where there are none.

The campaign is a call-to-action for individuals, corporates, families and groups to go out and buy a book for someone who does not own one. It is about igniting passion and taking that person into the magical wonderland of books, by simply introducing them to the joy of reading and making South Africa a better place.

It is with this in mind that the SABDC’s National Book Week rolled out its Buy-A-Book campaign during the Mandela Month, by calling on corporates to turn their 67 minutes of service into R6 700 for 67 Books by South African authors, which in turn is also an investment in the country’s book industry.

Heeding the call for 67 Books, NBW joined forces with the Cape Media Corporation (CMC), which used its annual Corporate Social Investment Programme to join in the Buy-A-Book Campaign. Cape Media donated books to children at the Ncedolwethu Orphanage in Mfuleni and the Dangerous Heroes girls’ soccer team in Phillipi Township, Cape Town.

“CMC embraced the campaign immediately because it’s a rare opportunity to not only donate books, but to share the joy of reading with the children in their mother tongue, as Nelson Mandela himself once said: ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart,”’ says Robert Arendse, Managing Director, CMC.