Improve education for Nepali girls and minorities

One of the goals of our read-aloud training program is to publish children's stories written by teachers participating in our workshops. We're excited to announce that our first three titles will be available in early 2021.

These three original children's books will be in Nepali with culturally appropriate Nepali settings and characters. It's important to us that all of our books are written, illustrated and published locally by Nepali authors and artists.

We were fortunate to have started developing manuscripts before the pandemic shut down schools and limited our ability to conduct training sessions and bookmaking workshops. In 2019, our partner in Nepal, Kakshyalaya, installed two beehives at two schools in Kavre that enthralled teachers and children alike.

That experience led five primary grade teachers from the two schools to work together to create a book about bees at a training workshop focused on using Nepali children’s literature for literacy instruction.

At a separate training workshop, a teacher composed a story of her first encounter with snow and how it frightened her.

Both the manuscripts were forwarded to our book editor in Kathmandu, who has a wealth of experience in writing, editing and publishing children’s literature. We're also grateful to be working with one of the most prominent children’s literature illustration artists in Nepal.

Our editor has recently polished the manuscripts and they are in the hands of the illustrator. We will share more details of our books soon.

Thank you for your support during a trying and difficult year!