​Sharpening the literacy skills of children as well creating a commitment to lifelong learning are the cornerstones of the City of Joburg’s pro-poor policy direction.

The City’s Library and Information Services (LIS) Directorate’s Story Skirmish Reading Development Programme is a competition that makes reading exciting and develops the necessary reading skills for children, especially those from poor backgrounds.

The competition started in 2001 and this year saw the participation of over 8 000 primary school pupils from grades 4 to 5 from 240 schools across the City of Johannesburg.

Story Skirmish is a fiercely contested competition where each participating child is expected to read books that are carefully selected by the City’s librarians. The books are easy and fun to read for second language learners and are supplied by LIS to participating schools.

Lerato Mfundi, the mother of one of the Story Skirmish contestants, said the programme was important for developing her daughter’s reading. “It’s exciting to see my daughter read so well and I know it will help her in the future.”

Learners went through five gruelling elimination rounds before the finals. This year’s finals took place on Thursday, 25 October 2018, at Danie van Zyl Recreation Centre, where Franklin D Roosevelt, Mikateka, Johannesburg Girls and Sathya Sai Primary Schools where competing for the privilege of being crowned the 2018 Story Skirmish winners.

During the competition, the learners’ knowledge of the books shone through. Some of them did not wait for the judges to read out the full question before they answered.

Mikateka Primary was the overall winner and walked away with the bragging rights and the 2018 Story Skirmish floating trophy. Each team member received a R500 gift voucher courtesy of the City of Joburg.

Franklin D Roosevelt where the first runners-up and team members received R450 gift vouchers each. Johannesburg Girls came third and received R400 gift vouchers per team member. Fourth-placed Sathya Sai received a R350 gift voucher.