African Storybook tops the charts during Covid-19

Tony Lelliott

African Storybook published a story about a simple, yet effective, locally designed piece of technology which enables children to wash their hands in an environment where there is no running water. There have been multiple translations and adaptations of this story and with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the importance of hand-washing being stressed, the total number of downloads has now reached nearly 10,000, demonstrating the impact of Saide’s African Storybook project.

 

 

Source: African Storybook

 

Jean de Dieu Bavugempore is an author of children’s books in Rwanda. Back in 2017 he participated in a Saide African Storybook (ASb) workshop held in Kigali in association with the University of Rwanda College of Education. At the workshop, Jean de Dieu wrote a story about the importance of hand-washing and on the use of the Kandagirukarabe, a simple, yet very effective, locally made contraption for dispensing running water.

 

In the photograph you can see a man using his foot to step on a platform or peddle which tilts a plastic container of clean water allowing the man to wash his hands.

 

Source: Unknown – photograph of a man using the Kandagirukarabe – Step and Wash

 

The ASb team immediately saw the potential of this story to make a useful contribution to children’s understanding of health and hygiene. The next step was to get the story translated from the original Kinyarwanda and to have it illustrated. Realising the importance of the hand washing message, the ASb team also decided to have the story adapted it into more simple language for younger children to be able to read as well. This entry level storybook is called Step and wash! Slowly, over the next two or so years, this version was  translated into a number of other African languages, and there were modest downloads of the pdf version from the ASb website – approximately 600 downloads over the two years.

 

Suddenly in 2020, with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jean de Dieu’s creation really came into its own. With the importance of hand-washing being stressed across the continent, downloads of this storybook increased to over 3200 in one year!  At the same time, the storybook was translated and adapted multiple times by various ASb users and now there are 32 versions in 28 languages available on the ASb website https://www.africanstorybook.org/

 

 

Source: African Storybook illustration of the Step and Wash

 

The popularity of Step and Wash continued to increase, in 2021, 4520 copies of the storybook were downloaded. Now, with the multiple translations and adaptations of this story and the total number of downloads reaching nearly 10,000, the relevance of this storybook in this time of ongoing Covid-19 infections is underscored.