Ethiopia represents a challenging environment for children’s literacy and creating a reading culture. There are more than 50 million children and young people under 18 (the US has only 74 million), and is children are taught in primary school in 12 mother tongue languages. Although the government has been rapidly expanding the education system at all levels and literacy rates are rising, the real power of literacy and self-education comes from having access to plenty to read.

Unfortunately, there are few, small publishers, very few titles published, few bookstores, no public libraries and so almost no books in local languages – even Amharic, the national language – available for children and young people. Ethiopia has never been colonized, so English / French / Portuguese do not have the large role in education that exist in most other African countries, although children do study some subjects (e.g. science) in English in higher grades. Most of the books available in the few libraries for the young in Ethiopia are donated English language books, which hold little interest for younger children, and no stories about their own world.

After various experiments and projects around publishing local language books, books, Ethiopia Reads has recently launched local language books as a new program, and current has two major projects:

• Becoming a supportive partner to local children’s publishers and the book industry: we believe that there will not be enough attractive children’s books in Ethiopia until there are many children’s publishers that are supported by local buyers, whether parents, relatives, school libraries or government. Ethiopia Reads has been a constant purchaser of local language books since it started the first children’s library in Ethiopia in 2003, but is frustrated by the lack of availability and quality. Over the next few years we will be seeking to grow our budgets to allow us to purchase more locally published books for our libraries, and become a source of knowledge and knowhow for others seeking to set up children’s libraries.
• Printing and distributing local language early readers to Ethiopian schools: Ethiopia Reads is already also partnering with Ready Set Go Books, founded by our Co-founder Jane Kurtz, and supported by Open Hearts Big Dreams, who are creating a series of attractive, culturally-connected, illustrated story books which will be available to be published in multiple Ethiopia languages. Ethiopia Reads plans to print and distribute more than 100,000 copies of 20 titles in at least three Ethiopian languages during 2018.
• Advocacy and Partnerships: we will participate actively in the Ethiopian children’s books community to advocate for and support children’s publishers, writers, illustrators and book distribution as resources allow.