About ASP | African Storybook Project

"Why the African Storybook Project? Over the last decade, African Governments have made progress in pursuing the goal of Education for All.  However, the reading literacy levels of African children after the first three years of schooling are far from adequate, both in providing the basic ability to read as well as the literacy necessary to proceed to the next level of schooling. There are many reasons for this. A key obstacle to learning to read is the shortage of appropriate stories for early reading in languages familiar to young African children. Since young Africans have very little to read in familiar languages, they often do not learn to read well or enjoy reading. This in turn means that there is not a market for African language books and publishers cannot afford to produce many such books. So young Africans end up with very little to read and the cycle continues We cannot possibly create sufficient stories in the thousands of languages spoken on the African continent unless we share the stories we have, and enable users to translate/version stories into their own languages. To do this, we need three things: A website – a place to find, create and share stories. Openly licensed stories – which allow free use, as well as adaptation and translation. Partners – people who contribute to and use the website and the stories – particularly our pilot partners ..."