Last week reporters from the Medan Trubun interviewed Cinta Baca staff and wrote two articles about the work in northern Sumatra. The first article appears on line and can be read in Indonesian by clicking here. The following is a rough translation of the first article:
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Laporan Wartawan Tribun Medan Ilham Fazrir Harahap
TRIBUN-MEDAN.com, Medan Maria, a staff member of Cinta Baca (CB) in Medan said, it can be hard these days to find a mother who wants to read stories to her children. For as long as she has been a part of CB, she has had to overcome a lot of obstacles when running the “Family Reading Program”. She said at this time mothers no longer have time to read stories to their children.
“Rarely do we met a mothers who want to read to their children. They just don’t have time to read. Often times the role of the mother in this regard can be more important that the father. So we want to help mothers teach their children and make reading books more common than perhaps playing with their different gadgets” said Maria during a discussion with Tribun staff on Saturday (Jan 17).
She also mentioned that is very hard to find a family that sets time aside to gather together and read.
“Usually families gather to watch a movie. Rarely do we find families gathering together to read and discuss a book.” Said Maria.
Maria hopes that the presence of CB will enable mothers to raise children from a very young age and instill in them the love and habit of reading books.
“So we are currently encouraging mothers to teach their children from a young age to make reading a regular part of their life. The role of the mother is more important when compared to the father as often time the father is busy working and doesn’t have time to give to the children like the women tend too”
“Ages 3-6 years is the golden generation for developing a love of reading. At this age the role of the mother is to read books to the children so they become familiar with books and love to read. But it goes beyond merely reading the book. We hope that after they are done reading the children will also remember what they read” Maria added.
Currently CB has 36 Reading Posts in Northern Sumatra. Every post has to have a standard style rack which CB has designed.
Ronny, a staff member of CB mentioned that every reading post that they own must be made available to others in the community. He said that their hope is that every post has a local volunteer to run it.
“At this time CB Northern Sumatra already has 36 Reading post. Every post that we open is not just a place of reading but we also maintain a list of people who visit the post. So this way we know how many people come and visit each post” – Ronny
Ronny said to encourage mother to make reading a habit they created a program called Kejar (Family Reading Program). In this program, mothers are given 2 books that they read to their children every day. After they participate in the program they hope every parent is able to read 40 books to their children each month.
“In the Family Reading Program, there are a number of methods that we use to encourage parents. The parents need to learn how to help the children become familiar with books and not just read them to them. Besides that we also select books that teach different character lessons”
