The Forgotten Four

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 for teaching, writing and dance. Ros is the CEO and Founder of the South African Non-Profit Trust, The LEARN Project which stands for ‘Let’s Educate A Rainbow Nation’ 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 in the number of school LEARN library doors that have been opened and minds that 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 awarded The Paul Harris Fellows Award by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. She has worked closely on The Presidents ‘Reading Champion Programme’, as the Provincial Lead Support Partner with The LEARN Project. Other titles by Roslynne Toerien includes: Under the Baobab Tree; and The Rumbling Rhino. Julie Smith-Belton is a visual artist working in painting, sculpture, photography, illustration and graphic design. Whimsy, quirky humour and playful creativity are the themes that run throughout Julie’s work. Julie was born and raised in South Africa and currently lives in Denmark with her family. Her childhood was spent out in the KwaZulu-Natal countryside, living simply, enjoying the sunny days and riding horses. From here her love for nature and the outdoors grew which inspired her love to create. She went on to study fine art and graphic design after school, graduating cum laude in 2004. She has exhibited and sold original artworks, taught art to children and worked on a number of illustrated short stories and books, including volunteering for book dash and illustrating for The LEARN Project. She is a mom of 4 who loves to work on things that bring joy to those around her and lives with a dream of making everything around her beautiful and of impacting the world through playful creativity and love.