Creative writing and drawing competition for children

Nal'ibali is a national reading-for-enjoyment campaign - co-founded by Times Media and PRAESA (The Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa). The competition is partly in celebration of International Children's Day on Saturday, 1 June. Entries close for the competition on 22 July. Winners will be announced on 12 August. Entries can be submitted in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa and isiZulu.

"We are all born to tell stories, memorise, and make sense of life in story form, and, to encourage this, we're asking children across South Africa to tell a story by drawing and writing, be it a story, poem or prose about what is special and important to them," explains Carole Bloch, director of PRAESA.

"We'd like to get children as young as three involved in telling their stories as well, hence an opportunity for them to draw what matters to them."

Judges

Creative and passionate individuals including South African poet and author, Dawn Garisch; award-winning jazz singer and mother of five, Judith Sephuma and Carole Bloch, will judge the entries.

The winning submissions will later be turned into an eBook together with writing tips and activities to inspire caregivers, teachers, librarians and reading club volunteers to continue growing their children's capabilities in reading and writing. The book hamper prizes, courtesy of Cambridge University Press African Branch, will be awarded for the best story or description; the best drawing, the best poem, and the reading club or school that submits the most entries. Runners-up will receive stationery hampers to the value or R750 courtesy of Waltons.

For more, go to www.Nalibali.org, the Facebook page and @NalibaliSA on Twitter.