Jane’s Dreams

One of Ethiopia Reads’ Founders and Past President, Jane Kurtz, has dreamed that there would be more children’s books in Ethiopia. Since 2017, Jane has led the way for the creative yet simple magic of Ready Set Go Books. These playful and culturally appropriate books are published under the Open Hearts Big Dreams Fund Ready Set Go Books Project. The sales of these artistically illustrated books help to create more books. (Please see below.) This past year Open Hearts Big Dreams reached an incredible milestone of creating 100 RSG book titles! Many of these titles are already printed in several local Ethiopian languages such as Amharic, Dizin, Afaan Oromo and Tigrinya.

In January, our Addis Ababa office were delighted to receive the translation of the first 10 of these titles into the Somali language, assisted by the Somali State Education Bureau. It is incredibly significant that these books were translated into Somali to provide mother tongue reading materials for Somali-speaking children. The Somali Region is located in the south western part of Ethiopia and the region has the 4th largest population in the country, with around 6 million people, of whom nearly 4 million are under 19 years old. Sadly, the region also has one of the lowest success in children’s reading in Ethiopia for many reasons. With generous support from Open Hearts Big Dreams and Ethiopia Reads’ sponsors, 60,000 of these books in Somali and other Ethiopian languages will be printed in Ethiopia and distributed to children who urgently need more and better books to read. 

Each title has its own teacher’s guide for educators created by volunteers from the Ethiopia Reads’ Book Centered Learning Committee. This committee is made up of professional educators and leaders in children’s literacy such as our Board Member, Dr. Laurie Curtis. Ethiopia Reads’ Addis Ababa office is responsible for printing these early reader books, distributing them to primary schools throughout the country  along with teacher’s guides for each book. Additionally, we will provide professional development training to all educators who will be using these books to help them encourage reading for pleasure outside of the classroom and support to improve literacy. 

Your generous donation to Ethiopia Reads will help to print and distribute thousands of these educational, unique and colorful early reader books in local languages as well as the translation and printing of the teacher’s guides. We are excited for another productive year of helping children reach their dreams of reading. 

Open Hearts Big Dream, Ready Set Go Books are available for purchase in the US on Amazon.com. You can also support local bookstores by purchasing these beautiful books from www.Bookshop.org