Ethiopia Reads - Volunteer Teacher to Teacher Training - We need YOUR help!

We wanted to let you know about an exciting project that Catie is taking part in. This summer, Catie, along with a dozen other U.S. teachers and librarians, will be traveling to Ethiopia to participate in a teacher-to-teacher training, sponsored by Ethiopia Reads.

Ethiopia Reads is a grassroots organization, that SilverChicks supports. Ethiopia Reads is dedicated to promoting literacy in Ethiopia by setting up libraries, publishing children’s books written in local languages and sponsoring teacher trainings (such as this one).

Catie has already covered most of her own costs to participate in this wonderful project, but Ethiopia Reads is still scrambling to cover costs of buying books, bringing over books and helping to support teachers (who, obviously, on a teacher’s salary are on a tight budget).

We are hopeful that you, or anyone you know, might be interested in helping to support this great project. All donations will go directly to Ethiopia
Reads, and specifically to this program, and are tax-deductible.

During this trip June 23 to July 7, together with Ethiopian teacher/librarians, we will collaborate on ways to connect children with reading, using storytelling, music, acting, and art. In addition to holding training sessions with our counterparts, we will model classroom teaching techniques, visit theschool libraries and offer suggestions on everything from design to scheduling, meet with school directors, and work with the staff of the Shola Children’s Library, who will help with translation.

Ethiopia, one of the oldest countries in the world and the only African nation that was never colonized, possesses a rich cultural history. Despite this heritage, however, Ethiopia’s 75 million people live a precarious existence, with 50% in poverty and 60% illiterate. Ethiopian children often learn to read in classrooms with 180 other students, and books are scarce. People in Ethiopia, like many other Africans, speak of the importance of developing “a reading culture” as a way of overcoming poverty.

Ethiopia Reads was founded by Gebregeorgis Yohannes, who returned to his native Ethiopia after spending nearly two decades as a children’s librarian in San Francisco. He enlisted the support of Jane Kurtz, a celebrated children’s author, who spent her childhood in Ethiopia and has written dozens of books about its
culture and people. Together, the two of them began bringing books and reading to Ethiopia’s children.

One of Ethiopia Reads’ most noteworthy projects was the opening in 2003 of the Shola Children’s Library—Ethiopia’s first free library. With the help of other organizations, including the San Francisco Public Library, which donated books, and the First Presbyterian Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which raised money and collected books, Jane and Yohannes established a library that serves a city of
three million with seating for about 125 children. The library, which received 60,000 visits in 2006, houses about 15,000 books, many written in Ethiopian
languages.

For more information about Ethiopia Reads, visit www.ethiopiareads.org.

Thank you!