Under the Baobab Tree

On a hot summer’s day, the animals wandered, they roamed and explored, theygalloped and soared, in search for the perfect tree for their needs.Many trees were falling one by one, from the force and destruction of what theelephants had done.And some of the trees that had stood the test, had patches of bark missing fromthe rhino’s unrest.And looking more closely at the top of the trees, sat fish eagles in waiting to soarand fly free.Will the animals find the perfect tree?

Roslynne Toerien is a proudly South African mother of three young children,residing in Durban, KZN. She holds a Bachelor Of Education and has a love forteaching, writing and dance. Ros is the CEO and Founder of the South AfricanNon-Profit Trust, The LEARN Project which stands for ‘Let’s Educate A RainbowNation’ and aims to equip disadvantaged schools with libraries and book corners.She lives by the motto ‘Small actions lead to big change’ and this can be seen inthe number of school LEARN library doors that have been opened and mindsthat have been unlocked through the power of books and literacy.Ros has been a guest speaker at a number of events and schools and was awardedThe Paul Harris Fellows Award by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International.She has worked closely on The Presidents ‘Reading Champion Programme’, as theProvincial Lead Support Partner with The LEARN Project. Julie Smith-Belton is a visual artist working in painting, sculpture, photography,illustration and graphic design. Whimsy, quirky humour and playful creativity arethe themes that run throughout Julie’s work.Julie was born and raised in South Africa and currently lives in Denmark with herfamily. Her childhood was spent out in the KwaZulu-Natal countryside, livingsimply, enjoying the sunny days and riding horses. From here her love for natureand the outdoors grew which inspired her love to create. She went on to study fineart and graphic design after school, graduating cum laude in 2004. She hasexhibited and sold original artworks, taught art to children and worked on a numberof illustrated short stories and books, including volunteering for book dash andillustrating for The LEARN Project.She is a mom of 4 who loves to work on things that bring joy to those around herand lives with a dream of making everything around her beautiful and of impactingthe world through playful creativity and love..