The supplement, which is available weekly in select Times Media newspapers in English-Afrikaans, English-Xhosa, English-Zulu and English-Sesotho, will be distributed further to schools in the Western Cape and Gauteng as part of a national tour featuring Khumba costume characters and to children at Virgin Active Kids Clubs, which will be hosting Khumba Kids Camps.
This will ensure that as many South African families as possible can enjoy the tale and are introduced to the Nal'ibali supplement which offers stories, literacy tips and reading and writing activities for caregivers to enjoy with their children.
"Multilingual literacy development is at the heart of the Nal'ibali campaign, so we were delighted to translate an adaptation of the story into isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho and Afrikaans," comments Carole Bloch, director of PRAESA (Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa), which is driving the Nal'ibali campaign with print media partner, Times Media.
The special edition of the supplement will also be distributed to reading clubs, literacy organisations, libraries, schools and early childhood development centres that are part of the Nal'ibali network, receiving 30,000 free copies of the supplement each week. To encourage making reading part of everyday life, a limited edition Khumba bookmark with literacy ideas for children will be distributed with the supplement to all the reading clubs.
"Nal'ibali is the perfect partner as it has an understanding of the audience and was able to help align the story to become a useful tool for young readers. With the translation of the story into additional languages, I'm hoping that children can relate even more to the universal themes that both the story and the film address," says Khumba director, Anthony Silverston.
As the promotional agency working on the movie, Dan Frost, MD of Coppermonkey Promotions, adds, "When we read the story that Silverston had originally written, we felt it was a wonderful piece that could be used further and, after being introduced to the team at Nal'ibali, we discovered the perfect partner. Reading is something that we feel passionately about and we hope that the work it is doing will encourage more parents to read to their children and more children to take up reading themselves. We also hope that families who read the story will be inspired to go and watch the movie."
Khumba, the second 3D animated feature from the Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation Studio, tells of a zebra that is born with only half his stripes. When he is blamed for the lack of rain by the rest of his superstitious herd, he embarks on a brave quest to find the legendary waterhole where the first zebras got their stripes. Khumba meets a quirky range of characters and teams up with an unlikely duo: Mama V, an overprotective wildebeest and Bradley, a flamboyant ostrich.
For more information on the film, go to www.khumbamovie.com and for more information on Nal'ibali, go to www.nalibali.org.
