Help African Children See Themselves In Storybooks

Grandma's List, a winner of the Golden Baobab Prize for Picture Book has just been awarded the internationally coveted Children's Africana Book Award (CABA). Grandma’s List was submitted as an unpublished manuscript to our Golden Baobab Prize by Portia Dery, a first-time entrant from Ghana and her story won. As part of Portia’s winning package, we guaranteed the publication of Grandma’s List through our publishing partner, African Bureau Stories.

A few weeks ago, we received the incredible news that Grandma's List had won the 2018 CABA Young Children’s category along with books from international publishers Penguin Random House, Candlewick Press, Lantana Publishing, among others. The book was vibrantly illustrated by South African artist Toby Newsome, whose delightful illustrations won him the CABA along with Portia Dery

CABA is an annual award presented to authors and illustrators of the best children’s and young adult books on Africa published or republished in the U.S. The awards were created by Africa Access and the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association (ASA), and its sponsors include the African Studies departments of universities Harvard, Howard and Yale among others. Past winning writers and illustrators of CABA include Desmond Tutu, Nnedi Okorafor, A.G. Ford and Niki Daly. Visit facebook.com/pg/africanbureau/shop/ to order your copy of Grandma’s List or click here for the eBook on Amazon.

Your support has made this incredible win possible! This international recognition not only honors Golden Baobab’s work, but also honors the belief you have placed in our cause. And together, we are creating the world we want to see. A world where high quality African children's books are available and accessible globally, and African children’s writers and illustrators are supported and celebrated locally and internationally. Please take the next three minutes to share our project with 3 people in your family, work or friend circles, who can contribute a minimum of $50/£50 to our cause today. Thank you so much for sharing! Your gesture makes a world of a difference to us!

With gratitude,

Golden Baobab

Dear Friends,

1st March 2018 was World Book Day to celebrate a global love for reading, authors, illustrators, publishing and all things books! Golden Baobab used the opportunity to honour African children’s writers and illustrators and, highlight the importance for African children to see themselves in books they read. We also used this celebratory event to raise funds and underline the need to support writers and illustrators, so they are equipped to produce their best work.

We started the new year by revamping our Prize call for submissions to get more stories and illustrations entered. With your support, we have been able to extend our scope and reach a wider audience of potential winners of the Prize. On 31st March, 2018 we will close submissions to our literature and illustration award and move to the next phase of the Prize, where the selection process will begin. Our global network of volunteer readers will commence the primary readings to evaluate the entries received. After, our jury will rigorously deliberate and select the longlisted and winning stories and illustrations.  

Thanks to your unwavering immense support of this project, we have currently raised $7,631 which is 20% of our overall goal. Through Globalgiving, we will have the opportunity from 9th to 13th April to participate in a matching campaign, where any recurring donations ($200 or less) and small donations ($50 or less) made will be matched up to $50,000. Over this 5-day matching period in April, we hope to reach $10,000 of our $35,000 goal.

We count on you to support and share the word with your family, friends and colleagues!

With gratitude,

Golden Baobab

Dear friends,

Our Global Giving project is raising money to support the organising of the 8th edition of the Golden Baobab Prize, the pan African literary award established to discover and inspire talented African writers and illustrators to create more African storybooks for children.

We are excited to report that the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize has been launched earlier this year and is receiving submissions. Because of your generous donations we are to able increase our communication efforts to get the word out about the Prize to more countries, and help us find as many diverse writers and illustrators as possible. In support of this communication effort, the Golden Baobab Prize Committee has extended the deadline for the 2018 Prize by 4 months. The new submission deadline for the Prize is 31st March, 2018 and winners will be announced on 18th September, 2018.

Through Globalgiving, we have the opportunity this month to participate in a Year End Campaign which ends on 31st December, 2017. Your support at this time means that in the coming 3 months (before the Prize submission deadline ends) we will be able to:

• Translate the Prize submission guidelines from English to French, Spanish and Portuguese.
• Create effective and specified ad announcements to spread information on the Prize

This campaign will contribute towards our project’s $35,000 goal. So far through your kind donations, we have raised $7,500 on Globalgiving, which is 20% of what our project needs. With your support, we can raise the remaining 80% to fully fund the 2018 Golden Baobab Prize project.

How can you help?

1. Share our project with 3 friends you know who would love to support us. You could add a sentence to show why you gave and why they should too! This will go a long way to grow support for our work, and you’ll be done in 5 minutes!  
2. Consider making a donation to our Year End Campaign

We are counting on your support!  

With gratitude,

Golden Baobab