Piloting African Storybooks Apps in Kilifi.
African Storybook Org is a multilingual literacy initiative that publish openly licensed stories for children in African languages. it has a website, where children and educators can read, create, download or adopt storybooks. African storybook encourages the use of a digital library of openly licensed storybooks for African children. The books can be accessed on its website https://www.africanstorybook.org and on its reader app. It also encourages people to use African Storybook Maker app to creating their own picture storybooks as well as translating and adapting existing ones into local languages.
Teachers and librarians can also support children to write and publish their own picture storybooks using the ASb Maker App and read them on the ASb website.
This year 2022, as Impertimus we have the privilege to pilot the use of the ASb Reader and Maker Apps with children in the Kenya National Library (Knls) Kilifi Branch and Moving the Goalposts (MTG) Library in Kilifi County, Kenya.
The Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) Kilifi Community library was initiated by the community in 2001. This library service the population in Kilifi north population. it is very busy on weekends and school holidays as more children come to the library. It is fully equipped with books, computers and staff.
Kilifi Community library and Impertimus have partnered to train children and their families in Kilifi County on how to use the African storybook tools to access books at home, improve their reading and writing skills as well as advocating for parents’ involvement in their children literacy development.
Piloting the use of African Storybook tools in KNLS Kilifi community library targets children from the nearest primary schools. Every Saturday from 2.30 PM to 4 PM we will be having reading and writing sessions using the African storybook reader app and maker app.
Moving the Goalposts runs mobile library program since 2017 to support girls and young women in rural areas to access reading materials and resources with an intention of improving the reading culture among the targeted beneficiaries through informed and targeted intervention programs. Under mobile library program, Moving The Goalpost works with the 5 MTG football hosts fields; Mwakuhenga, Bahati, Matsangoni, Silala and Mwaeba with the objective of improving the reading culture of MTG girls and women. MTG provide story books, revision, and life skills materials to the 5 identified schools to benefit the MTG school-going registered girls in those schools.
Piloting the use of ASB tools under the MTG mobile library program will advance the goal of benefiting the MTG school-going girls in the schools with access to reading materials and also develop writing skills that will help them in their learning as they use the African storybook reader and maker app.
Piloting the use of ASB tools that is the reader and maker to children in Kilifi gives the opportunity for children to have access to reading materials and also develop writing skills that will help them in their learning.
We aim to reach and hold reading sessions using the Reader App with at least 100 children and Support the formation of at least 10 groups of five children at each library to write and publish their own stories using the Story Maker App.
