The Best Drive coloured in a ‘Colour Me Melanin’ book for Universal Children’s Day

20 November 2019 marked Universal Children’s Day. The day was established in 1954 to promote international togetherness and awareness in improving children’s welfare.

To commemorate Universal Children’s day, The Best Drive spoke to Katlego Kekana, the creator of a unique colouring book titled, Colour Me Melanin.

Colour Me Melanin was designed for both children and adults. The book is made up of 27 drawings that pay tribute to 27 African Tribes. Each image is accompanied by a poem aimed at celebrating African women in strength and vibrancy. In conversation with DJ Sabby and Tshepi, Kekana admitted that she has always enjoyed colouring as a form of meditation. The problem however, was that all her colouring books had the same tired images. This inspired Kekana to create Colour Me Melanin. She stated:

“I think I have about 10 colouring books and you know you colouring the same thing: animals; leaves; you know the typical sort of stuff you find in colouring books so I just thought ‘what about publishing something that celebrates who I am as well as who I’m surrounded by, which is African women’.”

Colour Me Melanin aims to give children and adults an alternative to the traditional colouring-in book. Each drawing in the book depicts the traditional attire for a particular tribe, with a multilingual poem attached to it. The book is available for purchase at The Colourist.

To hear some of the poems and the full conversation you can listen here: