Kids eBooks in South African Languages
Nedbank Tree Planting Day Reflection – 22 August 2025
TAQA is a South African Edtech startup with a clear mission; to ensure every child has access to reading material that is fun, engaging, and relevant to their linguistic & cultural context. We tackle the literacy crisis head-on by leveraging language and technology to break barriers to access and present literature in formats that are exciting and culturally resonant for South African children.
Over the last couple of weeks, we had the opportunity to collaborate with Lungi Ntombini and her Team at Nedbank for their inaugural “Nedbank Volunteer CSI Tree Planting Day” at JongiMishini Primary School in Tsomo in the Eastern Cape. This is a new frontier for TAQA as it presents an opportunity to work towards combating climate change and the real effects it has on the lives of South African children. Our role in the program was as a learning partner, we used engaging storytelling to bring the tree planting and climate change lessons & demonstrations of the day to life in the form of relatable stories that help children contextualise and personalise the experience. We were invited by the Nedbank team alongside the Fort Cox Agriculture and Forestry Training Institute as key partners for the execution of the program.
This was such an exciting moment for us at TAQA as it allowed us to practically put to use a long held belief that stories (shared in various formats) are central to learning and are a key way in which humans contextualise facts and are able to make meaning of them. It is an age-old tradition that remains true in schools, homes, and all social circles to this day. The day began with a gifting ceremony in which Nedbank gifted the school and learners with new stationary to assist them in their day to day schooling. These gifts were received with great joy by the learners and teachers involved. We then proceeded to the main event, the Tree planting! This was a very exciting session as the Fort Cox Agriculture and Forestry training institute team and learners held a tree planting demonstration in which they planted 2 trees (other were planted the day before) and took the audience (incl. learners) through the process of planting the trees step by step. The conversation was led by the learners with them showing excitement and asking many questions about the process and the reasoning behind it throughout the session. The Fort Cox team did a great job at showing all of us both how to plan trees, and why to plant trees.
Our task as TAQA was then to take all of those learnings and present them in a fun and engaging story that can help learners contextualise climate change and the importance of tree planting, and to personalise the experience by speaking through characters they can empathise with. We told a story published by BookDash in IsiXhosa titled “Ukhozo lwembewo oluncinana” which translates to “A tiny seed”. This children’s tale tells the story of the legendary Wangari Maathai who founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya which taught and encouraged women to plant trees in their communities. This movement started as a grassroots movement and grew to other African countries, it is said to have contributed to the planting of over 30 million trees. In 2004, she became the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace prize. We told the story of Wangari in a fun and engaging manner in which myself and a few children would act the story out as I told it. We had so much fun doing so(!) and it was clear the children enjoyed it as well.
This simple act of planting a tree is one of the most effective ways to combat climate change, as trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen through photosynthesis, helping to regulate our climate and prevent soil erosion. We saw the learners’ faces light up as we brought this story to life, and their engagement afterward showed a clear understanding of key concepts around oxygen (re)production, soil erosion, climate change, self initiative, and other similar messages.
We believe the program was a resounding success and we are excited to see how this program can grow and build sustainable for the impact created to be furthered. We are grateful to sis’ Lungi Notmbini and the team at Nedbank and are keen to collaborate on future iterations of this work.
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