User talk:George Haimbiri/Publishing and reader in sub- Saharan Africa

Hi, thank you so much for welcoming me on Wikimania, Usertalk:George Haimbiri. As an Author in a sub-Saharan African country I would want to raise issues adressing the academic, intellectual, scientific and technological shotfalls and inhibits among the nations of the said countries. One day I was taken aback when I read on twitter that only one in three children would want to have a book in Britain. If that is the case how about the countries in Africa? It is even a measure concern where there are no official statistics revealing the gap in reading. A vibrant publishing industry is as important as making the readers.

In the recent past most readers and publishers in Africa concentrated their writings on the legacy of slavery, colonialism and apartheid. That left readers without any objective views apart from the emotions that were created. It is time that African societies create a rejuvenated desire for the publishing industry taking them away from the past and all its badness and deliver them to the future with all its challenges. The Education system should not first of all fail to create value like in the case of my country, Namibia, where the Government for the past 20 years stressed on Science and Mathmatics as primary subjects and the promotion of technology as the main objective. That, tough good, had left Namibia with an educational system that so far was unable to make any progress instead created unemployment of more than 50%,high teenage pregnance,domestic social violence and inadequate human resource. Publishing and reading are the backbone of any present society, whether industrilized or not, at the end of the day people should go ahead in many things supporting our life on the planet. All these are possible only when people are motivated to read starting with children at home and in schools. Unfortunately in most of the African countries reading and writing are looked at by the elite as a way of challenging their prestige which resulted in oppressive regimes and perscutions. For Example; in Namibia literature in schools was stopped, but at another hand encourage adults to do literacy for those who can not read and write. It is here to say that the Government in Namibia does not focuss on the continues value of a person to read and write, but just do it as one of the activities for a person to have. Let everyone in Africa and in the countries with interests to start thinking about these.