Participants at the workshop with Elizabeth

Ethiopia Reads Board Member and author Elizabeth Spor Taylor ran the latest Advance Writing Workshop for Children’s Books this April. The Workshop preceded our 4th Children’s Reading Summit. In addition to Ethiopia Reads staff, 14 advance level writers attended the workshop to help the authors step-by-step to come up with concept books. In the month that followed since the workshop, Elizabeth has worked one-on-one with each aspiring author to complete their impressive and imaginative books!

Participants working in pairs with concept cards

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Books bring hope and joy even in difficult times*   As the news of fighting and unrest in Ethiopia reaches us, we feel tremendously sad for the Ethiopian people and frustrated about the effects on their children’s education. Between 3 to 4 million Ethiopians have been displaced across the country of which over 2 million have been uprooted by conflicts in northern Ethiopia. Ethiopia Reads is responding and adapting to meet the urgent, large-scale needs of children whose normal lives, including education, have been interrupted. For the first time, Ethiopia Reads has gifted books directly to displaced families to support their children’s progress in reading, the basic foundation for their future education.    Despite this year’s challenges, our regular programs have continued and our determined staff was able again to deliver 100,000 books to children, schools, and libraries across Ethiopia.  BOOKS FOR DISPLACED FAMILIES Ethiopia Reads staff handing out book packets to families at IDP site* Many Ethiopian children have missed most of the last school year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Vaccination is not widely available in Ethiopia but most children, under restrictive pandemic protocols, have now returned to school. However, children living at Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) sites continue to lack access to formal education. To support them,  Ethiopia Reads won funding from the World Bank to print 45,000 illustrated storybooks** in multiple Ethiopian languages and gifted them to the children of 15,000 displaced families across Ethiopia.   ER staff leading parent information session at IDP site* Within four weeks of being awarded the funding, Ethiopia Reads’ staff had completed the project. We obtained official approvals, identified suitable titles, created parent support materials in 3 local languages, printed 45,000 books, packaged them attractively in packets of 3 titles for each family (with multiple different title combinations at each site), and identified four sites (working with the regional education bureaus and the IDP agencies) across Ethiopia. We also physically delivered the books to 5,000 Somali-speaking families (2 sites in Faran), to 5,000 Afaan Oromo-speaking families (1 site in East Hararghe) and to 5,000 Amharic-speaking families (1 site in North Shoa) and ran parent information sessions on encouraging reading at home. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach sites in Tigray.   Our team was accompanied by experienced photographer and filmmaker Yared Shumete. Yared was thrilled to be involved. He talked to many parents and reported that seeing their children’s excitement and interest in the books brought a reprieve from the uncertainty and discomfort of their lives. Most importantly, the gift of books brought a sense of hope and possibility for their children’s future.  Children reading at the Fafan Zone (Babile District) IDP site* In the process, we became better aware of the enormous needs of millions of displaced children who are missing out on education. We are returning to these distribution sites to assess and learn how to better support the families using and sharing these books. Please go here to support more books for IDP camps.  BOOK DISTRIBUTION AND EDUCATOR TRAINING IN OROMIA Educators at training in Ambo Earlier in October, we also printed and donated 36,000 copies of 12 attractive Afaan Oromo language early reader titles** to 90 primary schools around both towns of Adama and Ambo. During this process, we also hosted training workshops for 175 educators with advice, ideas and ER Curriculum Guides (also in Afaan Oromo) on how best to creatively engage and support their students in independent reading. Still today, most Ethiopian primary schools have no library and few books beyond textbooks Teachers in Adama learning to use ER Curriculum Guides That’s not all! Our highly motivated and determined team in Ethiopia accomplished much, much more.    We continued to provide reading support directly and indirectly to children at schools through our 80 Ethiopia Reads libraries. We continue to expand our educator training and parent advice to increase awareness and knowledge of supporting children to develop the habit of independent reading.This year we also:Donated 15,000 books to launch the children’s section at the brand-new Addis Ababa City Library, now the largest public library in EthiopiaPrinted and delivered 9,000 Somali language early readers and curriculum guides to schools around Jijiga and trained many educatorsHeld a summer camp with fun and educational activities for 50 children at our Gebeta Library in Addis Ababa.Maintained and expanded capacity at our Hawassa Reading Center to provide an additional 90 spaces per day to read and study.Created reading corners at various events through the year in Addis AbabaExpanded our Amharic language ER digital media channel (on YouTube and Facebook) to provide direct support to parents and children reading at home. Created teacher’s Curriculum Guides for many Amharic and Somali early reader titles. Children with books created by OHBD* Over the last two decades, Ethiopia Reads has been proud and grateful to have become a highly professional organization despite our size. We have consistently focused on supporting Ethiopian children reading and improving literacy in a country with over 42 million Ethiopian children under 15 years old. Data show that as of 2018, only 6% of primary students read at grade level and 25% could not read a single word. Literacy is an invisible crisis in Ethiopia profoundly affecting the country’s long-term future. Ethiopians have much to do to promote and support better access to reading for all of Ethiopia’s children.   Finally, we are thankful for our team in Ethiopia who are committed to our mission, courageous, professional, and full of heart. They are always willing to go well beyond what is required to get books into the hands of children across Ethiopia and support their reading.   Delighted children at an IDP site enjoying the gifted books together* Our continued efforts to deliver and promote support for reading to Ethiopian children will not be possible without your generous financial support. These days are extremely arduous for the Ethiopian people and to keep our long-term work going we will need your gifts. Please donate today online or via check. We will gladly send a handwritten greeting card on your behalf to honor a special person.    Thank you in advance for your continuing support of Ethiopia Reads. Happy Holidays and have a healthy and prosperous 2022!   *We are grateful to Yared Shumete for his beautiful work documenting our team’s passion. Find him on Twitter at @YaredShumete    **The titles that we selected to donate at both the IDP sites and the Afaan Oromo schools are from the 100 plus Ready Set Go titles created by the Open Hearts Big Dreams Fund. We are delighted to have so many creative, attractive, and culturally appropriate books available to share with Ethiopian children

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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

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