{"id":1137,"date":"2010-09-28T09:28:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T13:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2012-09-27T10:37:29","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T14:37:29","slug":"yoza-excites-african-teenagers-to-love-reading-using-mobile-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/meducation-initiatives\/yoza-excites-african-teenagers-to-love-reading-using-mobile-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoza Excites African Teenagers to Love Reading Using Mobile Phones"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve all heard the hype about eReaders bringing digital books to the masses. But often those “masses” are high-end consumers in the developed world who are reading for leisure and pleasure. So what about the developing world? And specifically teenagers, who have yet to find pleasure or leisure in reading? Books will not be the answer.<\/p>\n

There is a growing awareness around the impact that a lack of books has on literacy levels in South Africa. Books are scarce and prohibitively expensive for most South Africans. Stats show that 51% of households in South Africa do not own a single leisure book, while an elite 6% of households own 40 books or more. Only 7% of schools have functioning libraries.<\/p>\n

What South Africa\u2019s teens do have access to are cellphones, with stats indicating that 90% of urban youth have their own cellphone. Steve Vosloo<\/a>, founder of Yoza and fellow for 21st century learning at the Shuttleworth Foundation<\/a>, says:<\/p>\n

“For the foreseeable future the cell phone, not the Kindle or iPad, is the eReader of Africa. Yoza aims to capitalize on that to get Africa\u2019s teens reading and writing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Yoza: addicting teenagers to literature<\/b><\/p>\n

In 2009, Steve launched the m4Lit project<\/a> to capitalize on South Africa’s “book-poor, mobile phone-rich” dynamic and see if teenagers in South Africa would read stories on their cell phones. <\/p>\n

m4Lit published a story called Kontax in September last year and added another Kontax story in May 2010, both published in English and isiXhosa. To date, the two stories have been read over 34,000 times, over 4,000 entries have been received in the writing competitions, and over 4,000 comments have been left by readers on individual chapters. <\/p>\n

Encouraged by the high uptake of the stories and by these reader requests, the Shuttleworth Foundation decided to launch Yoza, to get young people reading and writing, regardless the medium.<\/p>\n

Yoza stories aim to captivate teens and inspire them to enjoy well-written stories by good authors. The m-novels are written in conventional language, with txtspeak only used when a character is writing or reading SMSes or instant message chats. Also included is prescribed school reading that is in the public domain, for example, Macbeth.<\/p>\n

There is no charge for the actual stories, but users do pay their mobile network operator for mobile data traffic. Images have been kept to a minimum to keep the mobile data charges low \u2013 these data charges on local cellphones range from 5c to 9c per chapter, making Yoza m-novels a very affordable option for great reading material for teens.<\/p>\n

Yoza m-novels:<\/b><\/p>\n