Children learn to read better when they do so in their first or home language. Still, about 40 percent of children around the world attend classes in a language they do not speak or use (UNESCO, 2018) – and many lack access to books in a language they understand.
In Mali, few books are available in Bamanankan. To address this gap, USAID’s Global Book Alliance in Action (GBAIA) project, an effort to increase the availability of local-language children’s books throughout the world, has been working in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Culture in Mali to improve access to quality children’s books in languages children use and understand.
The GBAIA project has partnered with sixteen publishing houses to create children’s books written in the Bamanankan language. Authors and illustrators were coached in the creation of books for early readers. Of the titles developed by the sixteen publishing houses, twenty-one titles have been selected for publication, printing, and distribution. A total of 180,000 books in Bamanankan will be distributed to selected schools and will be available to read and download for free on the Global Book Alliance’s flagship initiative The Global Digital Library.
For Fatoumata Keita, an author, publisher, and the Activity Coordinator for GBAIA-Mali, this project contributes to the larger goal of protecting and appreciating underserved languages.
“To produce, to read in one's mother tongue is to give a chance of survival to this language. Because, just as a tree needs to be watered to blossom, the mother tongue needs to be spoken, read, and worked in to survive over time and escape extinction. This is why the project to produce children’s reading material in Bamanankan is wonderful. It gives the opportunity to the Bamanankan language to breathe, to blossom, to escape oblivion.”
For videos in French, visit the Global Book Alliance YouTube channel.