Making magic happen: books for Ethiopian children

Summary

The Ethiopian Government is committed to a policy of expanding access to education as part of its strategy to promote literacy and to reduce poverty. As more children become independent readers, they need access to a wide range of reading material, including storybooks. Young children need books that help them to learn to read and encourage them to develop a habit of reading. In Ethiopia, children's literature is greatly lacking at present.

I seek funding to enable me to learn specialist creative writing skills so that I can become an authoress of best-selling children's storybooks in Amharic and English. Upon completing a distance-learning course on writing for children, I plan to publish at least four culturally-appropriate, affordable storybooks per year to educate and entertain Ethiopian children of various age groups, enriching their lives.

Every day that passes with a child not being able to read a book is an opportunity lost.



Background

There is a shortage of storybooks for Ethiopian children. Privately-owned bookshops are extremely rare outside Addis Ababa. Gondar is a city with a population of more than 250,000, yet at the local branch of the government-owned bookshop chain Mega, you would be lucky to find ten storybooks available for children from pre-school (age 3) to secondary level (teenage), although educational textbooks are more plentiful. Of Ethiopia's 80 million population, half are under the age of 21. Of these, 50% are literate, so 20 million children and teenagers are potential buyers and readers of children's storybooks.



Plan

I aim to complete the Writing for Children course of the Open College of the Arts (OCA). The OCA website states:

This course is about bringing whole worlds into existence right in front of the child's 'eyes of the imagination'. A children's writer needs to be a safe and genuine maker of wonders, someone who can create a world that is marvellous, mysterious and unaccountably enchanting, yet always provide an underlying sense of security. The course will help you to develop your writing in this specialised field. It pays careful attention to the main age bands recognised by publishers and you can choose to specialise within one of those bands. As well as writing your own stories and experimenting with form, style and technique, you will be looking at the work of well-known children’s writers and at their own notes and thoughts on their work. You will also have the opportunity to read widely within the genre

I expect to finish the course in one year, after which I shall write books for different age groups, aiming to publish at least four storybooks per year. I shall talk to publishers in Gondar and Addis Ababa before making a decision whether or not to publish the storybooks myself.


As headmistress of Empress Mentewab School, I encourage my pupils to read. Although supporters donate books in English for the school library, and these are helpful in teaching English, what the children really need are culturally-appropriate books in both Amharic (the first language in Ethiopia) and English (the official second language).

Instead of Janet and John, Ethiopian children need Almaz and Abinet. Almaz and Abinet would never buy a doll and a tractor at a local toy shop, but they would run to the local kiosk to buy a bread roll each to have with tea for breakfast. Harry Potter is very appealing to all children, but Ethiopian children need young Ethiopian heroes and heroines to whom they can more directly relate.

If you ask an Ethiopian schoolchild what he or she would like to do when he or she grows up, 99 out of 100 will automatically reply: "a doctor". I would like to write a series of children's storybooks to educate end-of-primary children (Grade 5, age 11) and above about the diverse careers open to them in adulthood.

Storybooks are also important for teaching children good manners and responsible citizenship. Principal characters can be role models for readers. I am interested in the well-being of people, animals and the environment and so I wish to write books that teach Ethiopian children about having compassion and consideration for others and for animals, and caring for the countryside.

Adventure stories for Ethiopian teenagers are virtually non-existent here - a gap in the market I would like to fill, especially as there are about 10 million literate teenagers in Ethiopia who, I believe, would love to read such stories if they were available to them. I have numerous ideas for books for very young and for teenage children. One is an adventure story for young teenagers that I started plotting and drafting several years ago. After completing the Writing for Children course, I'd expect to finish the book to a high standard and to get it published.

Implementation

Step 1 - 2011 - enrol on OCA Writing for Children course
Step 2 - 2012 - complete course then write and publish four storybooks
Step 3 - 2013 and subsequent years - write and publish at least four books annually

Qualifications

I am a qualified TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher, having completed a one-year part-time course in England where I was awarded my TESOL certificate with distinction in 1999. I teach English and Art at Empress Mentewab School.



Writing Experience

I completed the OCA Starting to Write course in November 2008. As a result of doing the course, creative writing has become part of my daily life. In 2009 I started the OCA Lifelines:Autobiography course (see the KFE'S LIFELINES BLOG section). I am half way through the Lifelines course and am working towards completing it in December 2011, with a view to publishing my autobiography soon after 2011, the year of my 50th birthday."

Finance

The OCA Writing for Children course costs £695 plus £120 for postage to Ethiopia - a total of £815. I seek a sponsor to pay the OCA on my behalf so that I can do the course.

The OCA website is in the LINKS section.


Please help me to contribute to Ethiopian children's literature by sponsoring me to do this course. E-mail me from the CONTACT KATE section to discuss this further.

Kate