Naivas Supermarket has partnered with The Standard Group PLC to promote a reading culture among Kenyans.
The partnership came during the celebration of the World International Literacy Day yesterday.
Speaking at the partnership event attended by renowned authors, including Kithaka Wa Mberia of Kifo Kisimani, Standard Group Chief Executive Officer Orlando Lyomu said the media house will provide a platform through its various products to achieve the objective.
“We as Standard Group will use our various platforms to keep this conservation going by making Kenyans both young and old become readers. Education is also one thing we want to champion to make the reading culture embedded in Kenyans. That is why through Newspapers In Schools (NIE) project we are already inculcating reading culture in schools,” said Mr Lyomu.
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He urged writers to also digitise their work.
“With digitised books, you will not have to take your books to all the 75 Naivas branches but readers can access them anywhere online. Also, it breaks down borders, thus giving you global access to readers and an opportunity to compete with other writers globally,” said Lyomu.
Naivas Supermarket Chief Operating Officer Willy Kimani said other partners in the project are StoryMoja Publishers and the Writers Guild Kenya.
“As Naivas Supermarket, we want Kenyans to tell the Kenyan story. We do believe as a Kenyan brand that we have a role to play so that Kenyans can read stories written by Kenyan writers and enrich the reading culture,” said Kimani.
He said the Writers Guild Kenya’s job will be to do quality assessments for the books before they hit the shelves.
Gabriel Dinda from Writers Guild Kenya said they received about 1,500 books to be considered for stocking out of which 70 per cent were accepted.
“Our work in this partnership is to ensure the books meet the right standards in terms of editorial, layout and design, among other things,” said Dinda, who emphasised the need for Kenyans to have book clubs at family or company levels.
