The initiative has been undergoing a phenomenal literacy work in the continent. Recently, Ethiopia has been selected as one of the countries to benefit from African Storybook’s (ASb) activities. The purpose of this blog is to assess what is going on.
Partnerships:
ASb partnered with governmental, non-governmental and private institutions to achieve the goals set in promoting early childhood literacy. As far as I know, due to these endeavors, mobile applications have been developed for Amharic and Afaan Oromo, students have been invited to assist in translation, writing and promoting, and story development workshops have been held. Such synergistic coalitions shall improve the quality and quantity of what is being done in Ethiopian languages.
Visits:
Lisa, Dorcas and Fatima visited Ethiopia and facilitated the activities held. The frequent visitor is Dorcas, who is from Kenya, a neighbor of Ethiopia. The explanations these visitors give, the friendly atmosphere they create during meetings and throughout their encounters with people here, has made ASb popular, at least among people who heard of it. I was also invited to a workshop in South Africa to learn about the new and updated website. This eye-opening visit made me appreciate the efforts everyone at ASb exerts! As young people, I and my friends should learn from the persistence of everyone at ASb.
Published:
Stories written by participants of workshops and story writing competitions in Ethiopia have been published on the website (africanstorybook.org). This hopefully encourages both the writers and others who take them as role models. There are many more writers, stories, ideas and concepts to use in the country. It is the amount of the trainings, reading and practice that should be focused up on to tap our potentials.
Translations:
As stories should cross borders of various kinds, translation is of a paramount importance. Unquestionably, though, these translations should be thoroughly evaluated before they reach the children. Let me mention my own encounter. Last summer, I gave the librarian at Ras Abebe Aregay Library, Debre Birhan, my translation of ‘Greedy Kiundu’. I changed the names of people and places to local ones to familiarize the story with the children who read in the target language. When the librarian, a young girl of 21, was done with reading, she asked me if I mean the residents of the village I mentioned were as gluttonous as Mr. Kiundu. I explained the reason why I used the name of that place and she calmed down. Since books cannot answer all readers’ questions once they fly out of our hands, care should be taken. The collection of translated stories mainly in the three major Ethiopian languages is growing. This will have a huge impact on the children who read them.
Original Ethiopian Stories:
Ten Tigrigna stories are being processed for publication. In addition to this, their English translations are also available. This is a fruit of a workshop held at Adwa and supervised by the ASb delegation mentioned above. I hope stories from the other languages will also be made available in the future. I say this because stories are best appreciated in their original forms than in translation. Some stories written in English were also published. ‘Petros and his dog’ is one of them. This encourages the writers who have to grapple with the medium, a foreign language, and the content suitability of the stories. We may see these children among the writers of their country in the time to come. Guess what I say to them when I hand them copies of their stories! “You are just like Achebe or Ngugi – you are a published African writer!”
Accessibility:
I wish I wrote this in gold. As to me, it is an issue of urgency. Obviously, I am happy that the stories are published, translated and assessed by a number of volunteers, commissioned people and ASb staff. But the question that everyone of us should worry about is whether our ultimate objective is met. I know I shouldn’t give up just here because it may improve in the future. Should we wait until it improves or should we take proactive measures? Let me make this point clear. The stories for which everyone of us strived to get published are not reaching the target children! The children do not have mobile phones, tablets or computers. They cannot access these fancy apparatuses. The laptop and projector donated to our library, for example, are doing a great job. If many of them are distributed among schools, the scenario would change for the good. Can anyone afford to buy these? We may not. What about distributing hard copies? I think this is feasible. So, we should find a means like this to achieve our goal and reach the children. I tried to distribute CD copies of the stories to schools in Debre Birhan town by going there. On the other hand, my effort to get the stories printed at the Debre Birhan Uuniversity, with whom we signed an MOU, is still awaiting some officials’ willingness. I have some working plans which I may mention in my next blog.
ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ