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Visits were made by the African Storybook Initiative (ASb) team members in 2015 and early 2016 to meet key early literacy organisations and establish how to proceed with identified potential partners. In June 2016 Dorcus Wephukulu and Lisa Treffry Goatley travelled to Debre Birhan, a city in the Amhara region about 130 kilometres north of Addis Ababa. They went to participate in a second story writing competition that Mezemir Girma of Debre Birhan University had organised at the newly opened Ras Abebe Aregay Library and Bookstore. As they learnt more about the new library, it became clear that it is one of ASb's budding partners in Ethiopia. Dorcas Wephukulu reports.
Located in Debre Birhan town, the library is the first of its kind in this town of about 100,000 people. The founder, Mezemir Girma, is a full-time lecturer at the Debre Birhan University in the department of English and Literature. He says, “I can see this library being the centre of literacy development in Debre Birhan.”
This is a great example of how an individual can bring others together for something he believes can transform the community. Since Mezemir has a full time job at the university he can’t work in the library during day-time.After the librarian, who he pays, goes home, he works at the library until 8:30 every evening. Mezemir says, “Children are developing a habit of visiting the library as much as they can. In the children’s corner they discuss library books, copy extracts, including poems, to be read in the morning at school for their school communities.” He also teaches speed reading at the library for free in his spare time.
The Ras Abebe Aregay Library and Bookstore is a step towards enhancing reading habits among the children and youth. Mezemir's experience as a lecturer points to the fact that much needs to be done to develop reading for its own sake. He says, “I concluded that English-related weakness I witnessed among the community emanates from lack of authentic reading materials.” Mezemir acknowledges that the lack of authentic reading materials contributes to poor acquisition of English reading skills. On one of my visits, he lamented on the shortage of literature written by Ethiopians that Ethiopian students could enjoy reading. He also shared his experience of how some of the students only do minimal reading for knowledge, and how reluctant they are to read anything other than what the curriculum stipulates. With the availability of openly licensed stories, communities without any written materials can build their own libraries through translation and learn to create their own stories. In this way, communities will contribute towards home-grown solutions for early literacy in their contexts.
Authentic reading materials could arise from the community reflecting its aspirations and values. The open licence publishing model facilitates this by giving the community an opportunity to collect, transcribe and illustrate their own literacy materials. But before a community can get to the level of writing their own stories, they need to access examples of how others are doing it elsewhere. The African Storybook website with stories from across sub-Saharan Africa is motivating the children in Debre Birhan, instructors and some university students to want to write their own authentic reading materials in local Ethiopian languages as well as in English. The Ras Abebe Aregay Library and Bookstore is providing them the opportunity and space to do this with some mentorship.
Story writing competitions that are organised in the library, are unique and provide the opportunity for the community to share knowledge, encourage and help writers to be better writers of literature in the languages they are confident in.
Even though the Ras Abebe Aregay Library and Bookstore is only few months old, its attraction is evident. Youth come to the library also to celebrate their rich culture through poetry and song.
The children and youth from the Debre Birhan community yearn for reading materials, are ready to share their knowledge through poetry and to write their own stories. Through the ASb open publishing model, they will do more reading in the languages they are familiar with, as well as in English. Local writers will get their materials published on the website for wider reading. This could be the beginning of and the birth of more Ethiopian literary scholars.
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