Durban — The Funda Mzansi Championship will reward participating inmates on Thursday at the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) Centre, Westville.
The programme aims to inculcate a culture of book reading in schools, communities and correctional centres.
Participants must compete in reading impromptu. There is also a book review, critical analysis and spelling competition in most South African languages including English, isiZulu, Afrikaans, Sesotho, and isiXhosa.
Lovulwethu Teketa, an inmate from DCS Ebongweni-Kokstad, said he was confident that his book club team would scoop at least four trophies.
“I am very confident that today we will definitely get a trophy. Such programmes are helpful to the offenders, especially those who never get a chance to attend school. It gives us opportunities to show our talent and skills. Also, it gets us ready to adapt and find jobs once we get outside prison,” Teketa said.
The Funda Mzansi Championships will reach out to all KZN DCS facilities including Pietermaritzburg, Waterval, Ncome, Glencoe, Kokstad and Westville.
Funda Mzantsi is a partnership between the DCS and the National Library of South Africa.
Thursday’s winners will compete in the Western Cape against universities, public schools and library clubs. The date of the competition will be announced later on Thursday.
The KZN DCS spokesperson, Thulani Mdluli, said Funda Mzansi continued to produce fruitful outcomes in rehabilitating and providing skills development in correctional service centres.
“Through Funda Mzansi, a lot of offenders have written books. Some of those books are selling in shops. It helps them upon their release. They get rehabilitated and are able to engage with others within the communities,’’ said Mdluli.
One of the judges, KZN Language Services assistant director, Hlengiwe Ngcobo-Ndlabi, said the overall performances were very promising.
“You can tell that they were all prepared, although you can tell that they are not used to being around so many people. Hence they panic, have stage fright and because of that they end up making a lot of mistakes.”
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