Peace Corps Ethiopia Literacy Projects Nationwide

BOOKS!

That's what we're talking about today.  Books.  Why?  Because across Ethiopia, intrepid Peace Corps Volunteers have taken initiative and used their supportive friends and family back home to help provide these life-changing literacy supplies to their students.

If you follow Ferengi No Habesha, then you're probably familiar with my own Better World Books Project to help supply my Read-Aloud Program at a local school here with my director friend, Belay.  My goal is to obtain a modest amount of juicy picture books that are rich in content and can be used to model good reading practices.  I'm looking for books that I can use to help young students practice making predictions, making inferences, and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.  Books that have repetition (good for predictions!), books that imply points through pictures and words (inferences!) and books that are relevant to my students lives (connections!) are what I'm primarily going for.

But I'm not the only one collecting solid picture books, and the idea is not new.  The first couple to start a book donation program was Daniel and Danielle up in Adwa back in December of last year.  They ended up with about 100 books, which they used "to jump-start a Reading Raffle once a month at three schools (like Book-It, but without the pizza)," according to Danielle.

Here's what their initial blog post says about their project:

"Adi-Mahleka, a school where I have English Club every Friday, has not a single children’s book in their library. Not in Tigrigna, not in Amharic, not in English. Zero. They’ve got textbooks galore, but what child is going to read those? Adua, another of my schools, has maybe 10 children’s books: a feat I nearly jumped and sang for.

Betterworldbooks.com is a website that works much like Toms shoes: you buy a book online (free worldwide shipping!) and they donate another to someone in need. We know firsthand that this donation process is legit; just two months ago, a handful of our volunteers received 500 boxes of books from this donation program (some of which were given to us for Adwa schools, when they had overflow). Daniel and I have created a wishlist for the schools in Adwa: which means, if you buy one book (average cost 5-7 dollars, again no shipping!), another is still being donated. That’s two books for children who have none, for the price of two Starbuck’s drinks.

In other words—pretty please?"

The idea was so simple, it was rapidly picked up by other volunteers.  Sarah and Aaron Arnold started their own book donation project in Bahir Dar in October of this year.  They mentioned the Books for Africa project that was done by the education group before us, G5.  Many of us were lucky to get some spill-over books from that project, but I found the books to be of lower quality (and therefore not as much use) as I was expecting.  Still, I'm always grateful for books, no matter what, and I've put them to good use.

According to their wish list they've received 65 books, although Sarah says it's around 70 now.

Inspired by the Arnolds, Emily S kicked off her own book drive and received "around 300".  The project really took off from there, with nine other PCVs including myself launching their own projects and appealing to the goodness of their friends and families hearts.  Here are the current book projects happening in Ethiopia and the numbers and success they have found so far, in no particular order:

PCV	Location	Purpose of Project	Date Started	Number of Books So Far
Daniel and Danielle	Adwa	To get books in the hands of students.	Dec 29, 2012	About 100
Sarah and Aaron	Bahir Dar	To expand a take-home library for primary OVCs.	Oct 4, 2013	About 70
Emily S	Dangila	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Oct 7, 2013	About 300
Emily C	Dilla	To help students improve their English in fun, creative ways.	Oct 23, 2013	6
Lacy	Yirgalem	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 3, 2013	37
Jackie	Durame	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Oct 23, 2013	87
AJ	Chagni	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov 2, 2013	53
Erin	Adet	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov, 2, 2013	350
Ashley B	Hawassa	To supply a reading program with read-alouds and independent reading.	Nov 9, 2013	75
Julia	Wonago	To create a reading culture and increase literacy in her community.	Dec 8, 2013	136
Mellissa	Debark	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov 12, 2013	133+
OhnSoon	Leku	To build a mini library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 1, 2013	47
Alicia	Ambo	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Apr 3, 2013	120
Nicolette	Aleta Wondo	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 4, 2013	34
Carlin	Hossana	To supply a read-aloud program for students and teachers.	Oct 23, 2013	40
Totals: 17 PCVs	15 Communities	9 libraries, 6 programs and literacy activities	12/29/12--12/8/13	≈1588 Books

For more about these projects, please click on a volunteer's name to visit their blog or document where they request books.  And because a picture's worth a thousand words, here's some photographic results of some of these projects (photos borrowed with implied consent):

From Ashley in Hawassa:

A quote celebrating reading at Adare Primary School in Hawassa

Students reading at Adare Primary School in Hawassa

From Emily in Dangila:

Before...

And After!  Look at those smiling faces!

From Lacy in Yirgalem:

The Ras Desta English Club in Yirgalem

From Jackie in Durame:

A student grins over a book in Durame

Students read in Durame

UPDATE Dec 15: A fancy map showing the locations of all these communities, and a pie chart showing each volunteer's contribution.

This post will be updated as new numbers come in and new projects start.  But I would like to thank everyone right now, volunteers and donors alike, for your hard work and generosity with all of these projects.  Together, we've managed to bring in 1,588 books and counting to this great nation.  Thanks so much, to everyone!

World Cultures Club Days 2 and 3: Culture Maps and Folktales

The last two weeks at Culture Club, I've been trying to get students to think about their own culture.  First, they thought about their zone or town.  The next week, they thought about Ethiopia as a culture.  In order to do this, I had students create what I called a "Culture Map," or a visual representation of their culture loosely based on a bubble map.

Here was my example:

It had the added bonus of teaching students a little bit about Seattle culture and how it was more than just generic American culture.  I divided the map into four corners - Food, Famous People, Landmarks, and Symbols.  I hope it's obvious which corner is which.  I got a reaction when I mentioned that Bruce Lee claimed Seattle as his home.  He's popular here because for some reason Ethiopians love watching martial arts films.  Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain sailed over their heads, though.

The results of their own maps varied.  Many students complained that they couldn't draw.  Academic culture here, as well as Ethiopian culture in general, is not too concerned with the arts.  I told them that it didn't matter how well they could draw, but to draw something.  Still, they were hesitant, so I told them they could use words but they HAD to be English words.  Still, my wonderful counterpart did a great job of combining both.  Here's his example of Gurage culture:

My counterpart, Elfineh, divided his map into food, holidays, crops and traditional ceremonies.  And the result is, a cool little map of Gurage culture including a Meskel fire (left - with the cross) and two happy newlyweds dancing (right).  I think that's a bowl of kitfo in the upper right hand corner, but I can't be sure.  I was just happy Elfineh was participating.

The following week, I introduced students to the concept of folktales.  I explained that every culture has stories that they share with their children, even Ethiopia.  But it had been my experience that many Ethiopians didn't know their own folk tales.

That's where your Better World Books came in.

I used "The Perfect Orange" as a read aloud to model what an Ethiopian story looked like, and checked for comprehension by asking students to make predictions as I read, or to summarize what had already happened.  By the end of it, all students showed that they understood the tale.  It helped that many of the words used were Amharic words - like injera, "Ato Jib" (Mr. Hyena), and shamma.  The main character even had a common Ethiopian name - Tsahai - that students immediately recognized.  Comparing to the western stories I've read to the fifth and sixth grade students at Belay's school (Where the Wild Things Are and the Lorax), I was reminded how remarkably easy it is for students to comprehend a story when they already have the background knowledge.  As a teacher, this has only further reinforced in me the importance of building background knowledge when I share more Western stories with the students.

After the read-aloud, students were given one of two Ethiopian folktales.  One I had photocopied from "Fire on the Mountain" (thanks, Mom!) and the other I'd taken from "The Lion's Whiskers" (the collection of stories, not the illustrated version).  Students were tasked with reading the story, familiarizing themselves with it, then telling it to a partner who had not read the story.  This practiced reading comprehension as well as oral English and retelling skills, although I did say if it became too difficult to retell in English they could explain it in Amharic, because that still showed they understood the English text.  They worked so well together I had to go about and take pictures.  I was also impressed to see mixed-gender groupings.  Here are my students sharing their folktales with each other.

Hooray for teamwork!  I was happy to see my students working well together.  Next week is "Ferenge Christmas Week," so I'll be explaining how Americans (in particular) and other Westerners celebrate the holiday on December 25th.  I plan on making snowflakes and paper chains.  Any other craft project suggestions are more than welcome, as well as anything you think I should share.

In fact, if you have any Christmas traditions you have with your family, please send me a note.  I can compile them into a handout for students so they can see examples of Western holiday traditions.  Ethiopians also celebrate Christmas, or the day of Christ's birth.  They call it "Genna" and it is celebrated on January 6th every year, the same day as the Orthodox calendar.

Yet another way "Do They Know Its Christmas" got Ethiopia all wrong. ;)

Cheers and happy holidays, everyone!  Please post those Christmas traditions for me before next Monday!