Teach 75 mothers to read stories to kids in Kenya

 I walked by my local bookstore yesterday and noticed a huge display of colorful children’s books in the window. It’s “Children’s Book Week” here in the US, and the store is highlighting a selection of newly released children’s literature to mark the occasion. This got me thinking about the enormity of the children’s book industry in America. Our children have thousands of age-appropriate books in countless genres to choose from, and even if books aren’t available to them at home, they can access books for free at both school libraries and public libraries. My own home is brimming with children’s books. My 3 year old soothes himself to sleep at night by flipping through books and telling himself the stories.

I took these resources for granted until I discovered, through my work with Maria’s Libraries, all of the educational set-backs children face when they aren’t exposed to reading and books from an early age. Learning to read is far more difficult if you don’t have access to books until you’re old enough to attend school. Even more so if the language you’re learning to read in school is different from the language you speak at home.  And how can we expect children to learn any other subjects if they don’t know how to read?

With this is mind, I am especially excited to report that with your support, in April, we expanded the Mama Mtoto (Mother-Child) story time program to include 4 more sites near Kisumu, Kenya. Over the next 8 weeks, mothers in the new program will learn to read to their children using both printed and digital story books. In the final weeks of the program we will introduce our new, multi-language digital story book.  At this stage, participating mothers will be invited to translate the story into their local dialect--expanding the book's language options to include Swahili, Samia, Kiteso and Luo. 

One of the librarians facilitating the Kisumu program is Rosemary Imbayi. After a Maria’s Libraries training on how to implement Mama Mtoto story time, she went home to her primary school in Sigalagala and started the program the very next week—even though it was in the middle of school vacation. Rosemary signed up five mothers and their young children and is working with them to record stories of their life and culture.  Rosemary does all of this on her own time. In fact, the only reason there is a library at her school is because she volunteered to start it. She is not paid any extra to run the library; she just does what needs to be done.

Community leaders like Rosemary are at the heart of Maria’s Libraries mission. We are doing this work to ensure that dedicated community librarians have the tools and resources they need to instill cultures of reading in their communities—and sustain their libraries.

 Your continued support enables us to partner with local change-makers like Rosemary, and create opportunities for many more families to experience the power of reading with their children. Through Mama Mtoto, dedicated librarians and young mothers are being equipped with the skills and resources to encourage early childhood reading. The impact extends well beyond children’s story time. This early exposure to books, especially printed (or digitized!) in local languages, sets children up for greater success in primary school. Equally important, it enables parents to take a proactive role in their children’s education. As we celebrate children’s book week here in the US, let’s recognize what a difference story books can make!