The Ghanaian and reading
Early July, I founded a non- governmental organisation (NGO) and as part of the opening of our maiden social media platform, I sent broadcast messages to all my contacts via WhatsApp messenger. As expected the messages were met with polar responses.
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It was quite unfortunate that some contacts courageously replied saying they felt lazy reading hence I should text them what the message was about. I asked myself if they will not read what I texted will what I text not be less concise compared to the broadcast?
Growing up, my father always told my siblings and I to read every written material that crossed our eyes; even those used to wrap roasted groundnuts and plantain. "If you want to hide something from a black person put it in a book" is a common quote we often say with humour but don’t think about. I will say "if you want to hide something from an average Ghanaian, feel free to write it down.”
"You do not expect anyone to break apart your head and place a book in it" as my mother will put it. If we are not prepared to learn positives today, how can we have a positive tomorrow? We prefer to spend our time and money stalking people and celebrities online; celebrities who pay publicity companies to manage their accounts chatting 24/7 with friends talking about nothing profitable.
We seem to be always using contracted spellings of words and "social media" grammar which destroys our language prowess causing a great decline in speech and written delivery.
Many will say they were not born with the love for reading or they did not get a rooted foundation when it comes to reading. Such individuals are naïve. Who was born a medical practitioner, a teacher or an infamous thief? "Rome was not built in a day" it took approximately 1,009,491 days (www.quora.com) to build.
Why will you not pick up an informative reading material today to help build your literacy? What excuse do you have not to nourish this deficiency?
Reading is a very broad umbrella under which each individual fits, no matter the preferred genre. Novels, drama, poems, biographies, newspapers, blogs, motivational books, the Holy Bible/Quran, movie subtitles, magazines, newsletters, textbooks and dictionaries are common examples of text content we often read or see around.
Last but not least, there are so many avenues to help improve on your knowledge but if you are not literate enough how do you read them? Knowledge then becomes far from reach.
Let us read our country towards the right direction. A direction we will look back one day and say “Yes! We served our country.’
Writer’s email: Okodart.wordpress.com
0205740529