I am happy to announce that The Foundation for Tomorrow is producing Kiswahili mini-books through the generous donation of WaterBridge Outreach. The mini-books were written by a selected group of primary teachers, Teacher Resource Center Coordinator Redempta Msacky and Ward Education Coordinator, Emmanuel Kaaya, all from Meru District here in Arusha.

During WaterBridge Outreach’s visit to Tanzania in October 2014, they saw the English leveled readers they donated through our literacy initiative being used by students to improve their reading skills. Peter Coughlan, WBO’s executive director, asked one of the teachers what else they need and the answer was: “We need Kiswahili storybooks” And WBO came through with a donation to make this possible. The plan was to produce mini-books in Kiswahili, some of them blank to encourage students to write their own stories and illustrate them.

The Teachers Training team set to work by bringing together a few teachers to co-create the Kiswahili mini-books and make it a reality. Two 1-day workshops later, the group finalized 8 simple stories in Kiswahili. A good twist to the plan was that the mini-stories they wrote also support their syllabi for Science and Health and Mathematics from K-3. We also found a local artist to render the illustrations for the stories. The photo that goes with this article is a sample illustration for a story about safe water. Right now, 5 of the stories were already illustrated. We are expecting that by end of April the mini-books would already be on their way to schools.

We are in awe of the support that WaterBridge Outreach has extended and continue to extend to Teachers Training program initiatives. In my next blog I would be posting pictures of the work being done at Teacher Resource Center Leganga and for Sinai Primary School also through the generous help of WaterBridge Outreach.