Arts and Culture Ghana Project #29660

Help African Children See Themselves In Storybooks

by Golden Baobab

Project Report | Sep 4, 2019
Supporting Children's Content in Ghana

By Eunice Ahenkorah | Project Leader

Golden Baobab partners with IBBY & British Council

Dear Friends,

In conjunction with IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Ghana, The British Council, Accord Literary and African Bureau Stories, Golden Baobab organized a week-long Fiction and Illustration Workshop in Ghana for authors, editors and illustrators of African children and young adult books. The workshops were organized as part of the 2019 IBBY Africa Meeting, held this year in Accra, Ghana. The workshops were led by a remarkable group of facilitators whose experiences include winning the prestigious Hans Christian Anderson award to editing of the Harry Potter Series. The facilitators included Sarah Odedina, Editor and partner at Accord Literary, Sophie Hallam, Editor at Tiny Owl Publishing and world renowned illustrators: Roger Mello, Piet Grobler and Ken Wilson-Max.

The focus of this unique partnership was to provide an opportunity for local and international writers, illustrators and editors to collaborate through practical one-on-one sessions and lecture style trainings. The workshops covered many themes including creating compelling fictional characters, building believable worlds in children’s stories and art, helping authors find their voice, and helping editors to know how to engage with writers and illustrators to bring the best out of their work. There were practical exercises to allow for a deeper level of participation and group feedback sessions to critique published content, as well as works created during the workshops.

We are grateful to our committed donors who give to our cause and support us to nurture the skills of talented African children’s writers and illustrators. Through such nurturing opportunities, we ensure more children’s content is created and enable the growth of the African children’s literary industry.

With Gratitude,

Golden Baobab

Facilitators and participants in session

Permalink

Jun 3, 2019
Publishing Opportunities for African Creatives

By Eunice Ahenkorah | Project Leader

Mar 4, 2019
2018 Golden Baobab Prize Season Ends

By Eunice Ahenkorah | Project Leader

Congrats to all who made our 2018 Prize Shortlist!

Dear Friends,

We trust the Year 2019 has kicked off to a great start for you! We are grateful to each and every one of you who has donated and supported Golden Baobab throughout the years. We want to specially highlight and celebrate our new and returning donors from last year, whose generous giving kept our project going. We deeply appreciate you for believing in Golden Baobab’s vision of the world and taking action to be a part of our journey. Thanks to you we had an incredible year! We successfully organized and ended the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize season.

The Prize Jury, was a panel of prominent international publishing and literacy professionals from all over the world. After a rigorous judging process, the jury selected 12 children’s authors and illustrators from six African countries across the continent onto our longlist for Picture Books, Early Chapter Books and Illustrators. Full details about the 2018 Longlist can be found here. After another lengthy deliberation process, the jury announced that the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize will offer awards to multiple entrants but have no winner. The jury concluded that the top entries of the literature prize were more ready for editorial support and mentorship than they were ready for immediate publication. Four stories were selected for the shortlist and awarded a prize package of editorial support, in addition to connections to publishing opportunities. It selected one illustrator for the shortlist commending them for their creative interpretation of the illustration briefs provided.

Our 2018 Shortlist were:

The Clock Can’t Jump Through Time by Adeola Adeyemo (Nigeria) for the Golden Baobab Prize for Picture Books
Think Before You Act, Kuku! by Thandazile Sakhile Mpofu (Zimbabwe) for the Golden Baobab Prize for Picture Books
Keeper of the Gates by David Kwakye (Ghana) for the Golden Baobab Prize for Early Chapter Books
The Era of the Afrocubs by Ayo Oyeku (Nigeria) for the Golden Baobab Prize for Early Chapter Books
Elizabeth Jeffery (South Africa) for the Golden Baobab Prize for African Illustrators

Stories and illustrators from the Golden Baobab Prize have gone on to be published by African Bureau Stories, Penguin Random House South Africa, Oxford University Press, Quramo Publishing and Cassava Republic Press among others, so we are very excited that our new cohort of storytellers will have wonderful opportunities to create more culturally-relevant storybooks for young readers worldwide. We ask that you consider making Golden Baobab one of the charities you contribute to this year so we can continue to spread our continent’s stories globally.

With gratitude,

Golden Baobab

Permalink

1 2 3 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.