Widow with Book Fair in mind

keeping money for bus fare so that her four children won’t miss the fun that goes with the Book Fair.
This year the annual show takes place in the Harare Gardens as usual for the whole week from July 25.
Scores of students from many schools will pass through the stalls that will be displaying many books that can help them in their studies.

There will be a lot of entertainment at the venue. The Sunshine City will be hosting one of the big events on the calendar of business activities.
The real name of the mother who has been collecting money for her children to attend the Book Fair is Voice.
She has been living in Cranborne Park with her children since before her husband died in 2000. Godfrey was a freedom fighter during the struggle.

The family, unfortunately, declined to have their full names in print for personal reasons. However, Voice is happy that the Book Fair is around the corner.
The annual shows have helped her children to do their best in school.
Two of them have had more than four years of secondary education each. The other two have reached university level.

“One son is taking a degree in commerce with the Zimbabwe Open University. His brother has been studying with Zou also.
“We’ve just received a letter from them telling us that he has passed,” said Voice.
“He was doing an honors degree in psychology. Yes, we’re in the middle of celebrating. He has done us proud.
“There is nothing which lifts the spirit more than having a child who has a degree in the family. All the other children will want to be like that one.”

Voice spoke of the value of education to all children on earth.
“There’s no life without education these days,” she said.
“Education is the best inheritance that you can leave for your children. It is better to have a dunderhead who is educated, than to have a bright child who isn’t. A child who has education will find a good job when chance comes.

“Children should have the best education that their parents can give them. A child who isn’t doing well should be allowed to learn at own pace.”
Voice described how she struggled to educate her children following the death of her husband. Godfrey died in a car accident when he was about to knock off from night duty with the police force.
He had received the Presidential Medal for having distinguished himself during the struggle.

“The War Vets pay a fixed amount of money for each my children who are in school,” said Voice.
“I pay the rest. When things were hard, I would pay fees first and then put in receipts to get a refund.
“Things weren’t easy during the days when our dollar was losing its value fast. I would pay fees and send in the receipts for refund.

“Then the school would ask us to pay more fees. You’d have put in your receipts to the War Vets. They understood the difficult situation that we were going through.
“They would give us back all the money that we would have used.
“I’ve nobody else to help me to send my children to school. When a husband dies, people think that he has left a lot of money for his wife and children. This is not the case.

“The help that I need,” said Voice, “is to have my children get work. I’ve played my part in educating them for the labour market.
“It wasn’t easy. The sewing that I do helped me to raise money. There is nobody that I can expect to help me. I’ve to help other members of my extended family.”
Voice spoke about how she keeps money so that her three sons and her daughter won’t miss the Book Fair.
“I give my children money to go and attend the Book Fair every year,” she said.

“I don’t make that mistake. I may not go there in person, but I make sure that my children do. It is a blessing from God to have children who are interest in reading books. Books are important in the life of every child.
“There are times when I forget when the Book Fair will take place. My children remind me. They do it so that I can keep money for them. I haven’t let them down.”
Voice is taking advantage of the opportunities that are in the country for children to learn to the highest level that they can reach.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries in the world with many people who can read and write.

That trend started when the government introduced free primary education at independence. Scores of adult people took advantage of that as well to go back to school.
They included the freedom fighters that had to cut their education short so that they would go and fight for their motherland.
Many secondary schools have been built in the remote rural areas. To cap it all, the country now has about 15 universities.
The people of Zimbabwe have become educated so much that you find them working anywhere you go in the world.

The 15 million people of this country read six daily newspapers on top of others coming from other countries.
There have many weekly newspapers, trade journals and magazines that they can buy on the market at any time.
The readers don’t buy as many books as they should because the people who sell books are not bringing them to them. The booksellers want to keep on selling them to the readers who are in towns. The ‘rain will fall’ on the day when you will see a shop selling books in townships.

Out of every seven people that you see out of every 10, they are found in the rural areas, on the farms and on the mining compounds.
There are no bookshops for such a big number of people in the population. The growth in schools has made the people who sell books to forget that there are old people who can read. As a result, they are losing readers to the films that will be showing on television.

The industry should go out of its way to cultivate the culture of reading among the people, who already know about books. There is no nation that can develop unless its people read books; books open the mind.
The people who sell books are showing openly, by the way they decorate their shops, that the people they want to sell their books to are those who are still going to school.
The student has become to cash cow for the book merchant.

The readers don’t know the problems that the market might be facing. A public relations exercise explaining what is happening would put a face to the players in this, one of the key industries for any nation.
The schools have remained the vehicle through which students learn to read books for the sake of passing their exams only. The industry should come up with strategies that can counter the influence that television has on the way that people read books.

The potential reader would be interested to take part in quiz shows on who said what in which book, which can take place in newspapers and on television. Only the reader who would have read the whole book would be able to pick out the quotations that would be in the contest.
The booksellers should move away from relying on selling books that are written in foreign languages if they want to remain in business.

Besides, this has the effect of making people think that their mother tongue in inferior.
The people from whom they want to copy things will oppress them until cows come home.
It is through reading books that are written in the mother tongue that people can learn to be proud of who, and what, they are.

There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of to be seen reading Garandichauya.
The people who sell books are not the only ones who put salt in milk.
The students who take the mother tongue at the universities fail the nation by not writing books.

Yes, the people who sell book should make money. But if they want to survive they should plough back some of their profits like what Chibuku does with Neshamwari Festival.
The market runs the risk of choking itself to death by saturating the schools sector. There is need to promote books that the people who have left school want read.
The silent readers like Voice can buy more books if they can have shops for books near their homes.

“The Bible that I had before got torn,” said Voice.
“Somebody gave me the new that one I’m using. Oh yes, I read other books as well. I even read books in English if they are written in simple words. I’ve been struggling to finish the one that my son gave me. I had

to read it with a dictionary.
“I put that one aside and am now reading Nyanyadzi. I travel with that book in my handbag. I read it whenever I get the chance.”

Voice was born in 1965 – the year that Ian Douglas Smith invented UDI on November 11.
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