Yoza: Stories delivered by cell phone raise the interest and literacy of African youth: Design Observer

via changeobserver.designobserver.com

Excerpt from original post:

By Meena Kadri

“I must admit that I wake up extra early to read the chapters (blushing) I never use to go to the library but… i feel like i have a library on my phone and its great , YAY!” — Yoza reader

Designed to encourage reading, writing and responding, Yoza engages African youth with stories and social issues. The project, which was spearheaded by Steve Vosloo, a technology researcher in Cape Town, and financed by South Africa’s Shuttleworth Foundation, is dedicated to a participatory culture hungry for micro-doses of literature that are accessible as pixels not paper.

Officially launched last September, Yoza is based on Vosloo’s observations that African youth are book-poor yet mobile-rich. An estimated 90 percent of urban South African youth have access to cell phones, and 70 percent of those phones are web-enabled. In stark contrast, more than half of South African households own no leisure books and only 7 percent of public schools have functional libraries..."

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