We got featured on Readers Inspired!

Time sure does pass whilst you are having fun!

We got another interview a while ago and well forgot to mention in on our cheer-leading wall! Head onto Readers Inspired and read our interview and also find out about more kids books that celebrate African authors and African book characters in leadership positions. Aminata has taken time to profile a few authors and compile books that cater to chocolate flavoured people.

So if you have been having difficulty in sourcing diverse and inclusive children’s books, look no further than Readers Inspired.

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My dreams for Losika Writes…

I know they are not Martin Luther King kind of dreams but I thought I would put it out for the universe to digest and hopefully fulfill.  One day I will reflect and hopefully tick all of them off woohoo.

I have a dream,

– that one day Losika Writes will be as well known as Penguin books, Oxford books etc

– that people will support small businesses just as much as they support the billion dollar companies that don’t represent them or even invest back in them

– that one day Losika Writes will have a variety of mediums through which we can disseminate all the well known but also lesser known beautiful languages

– that one day our kids will proudly speak Setswana/Ndebele/Zulu etc as we often see people speaking Spanish/Italians without having the pressure to speak English because they are talking to non-Africans. Imagine Miss Universe Botswana answering the questions at hand in Setswana, how cool would that be?

– that we invested in the education of our little ones from preschool age and not think it was only right for them to see one language as they are developing their own

Those are my dreams for Losika Writes and the brainchild behind this seemingly crazy venture so support and help the dreams become reality.

You are never given a dream without being given the power to make it come true.

-unknown-

 

Reflection- How language shapes the way we think…

I am one of those people who is always reading and when online, I do get carried away with opening new tabs. I must admit, I will often have more than 100 tabs open at a time… oops. I do then make time to read through each tab and most of the time, find beautiful gems like the TED talk by Lera Boroditsky, a cognitive scientist, about “How language shapes the way we think.” On finding out there are about 7000 languages on earth, my next thought was – how many of those languages are found in print? How many of these languages become extinct every decade because speaking that language “is not as cool as speaking a foreign colonial or adopted language?’

Having attended private school “aka English medium” in all my primary and high school education in Botswana, you wouldn’t have to look far to find people who were not keen to speak the local language despite living amongst people who spoke the language. To then have age mates who elected to only communicate with their children in English whilst living in Botswana was a very interesting phenomenon for me. To top that off, you could find a Kagiso married to a Kelebogile but having kids called Andrew, Katherine etc to help the kids “adjust in an English world”. The understanding of the above decisions was that being a monolingual, English only speaker, somehow made you more intelligent. English is a great language and one that can allow communication between multitudes of people globally, but we shouldn’t let the knowledge of English, be detrimental to Setswana as a whole.

Sadly, on reflection and more so after watching the Ted talk, all that is apparent to me is that we are probably gradually making our language extinct and hence the real ambition behind Losika Writes. To try, in my little corner of the world, to take our beautiful Setswana off the endangered list. Support the movement and buy your little one some books at www.losikawrites.com.

Enjoy the TED talk and looking forward to your opinions about the topic discussed.

Our first magazine feature!!!!!

We celebrate all milestones and this one is no exception.

We have been featured on MamaMag Eastside issue for April/May 2018 discussing the importance of “Keeping Language alive.” Grab your copy/read our article online and please support Losika Writes as we strive to celebrate our language diversity.

Our books are available as English only text or bilingual (Tswana/English and Ndebele/English books)

Losika Writes website – www.losikawrites.com

MamaMag link – Keeping Language Alive – page 42