In 2024, we celebrated seven years since publishing our first titles. Back then, we believed the most important thing we needed to do was create the content, big, beautiful early readers in heart languages celebrating the stories and culture of Ethiopia. We were right and we were wrong. The content is at the heart of our mission, but the books must also get into reader’s hands. Given that our self-publishing option doesn’t extend to Africa or Ethiopia, we took on local printing of our books in 2021, which requires significant resources and a whole different set of skills. As we continue to grow, we realized we need a third focus beyond creating books and local printing. We needed to engage new collaborators, individuals, and organizations to help us get our locally printed books all over Ethiopia, a country of 120MM, with 70-90 languages spoken. After all, our goal has always been to positively affect literacy rates, and that won’t happen without an additional later of engagement.
We are a tiny organization made up of mostly volunteers, so why do we believe we can positively affect literacy where well-funded, huge organizations have struggled? We know what we are accomplishing shouldn’t be possible. And we know we are not close to having the impact we intended but we know we are on the right track. No other organization has focused first on creating those missing, high-quality books and we believe, (and this belief is reinforced daily), that this will make all the difference.
In order to keep up the momentum, we need collaborators that have reach and resources. Two organizations we have learned about since we began this work are IBBY and Rotary. Both are key to our ability to achieve our ambitious goals. We have shared a bit about IBBY including our sponsorship of the first national chapter in Ethiopia. We are excited to continue to grow this organization to develop critical local capacity.
Now I want to share more about our Rotary efforts. I previously mentioned I joined The University District Rotary Club roughly two years ago, inspired by two Rotarians, Ezra Teshome, a long-time friend, supporter, and now my sponsor, and Azeb Asrat, a dear friend in Ethiopia. Both are past district presidents—Ezra in Washington and Azeb in East Africa—and are essentially legends in what they have accomplished during their time in Rotary and they continue to contribute. I have watched their leadership in different parts of the world have a huge positive, impact. A number of years back I identified Rotary as a key collaborator to help bring our mission to another level and we met with Ethiopian leadership in 2019 to discuss options. Ultimately, these two amazing humans inspired me to actually join and become a Rotarian. I then came to realize the opportunity was a two-way street. Rotary is focused on literacy and OHBD can help propel those efforts globally, too.
For those unfamiliar with Rotary, they are a global network of more than 1.2 million neighbors, friends, and leaders who volunteer their skills and resources to solve issues and address community needs. In my time as a Rotarian, I continue to see the opportunity the OHBD team has to both contribute to growing that impact and to benefit from the support of amazing fellow Rotarians globally. Our first international grant was approved with The Addis Ababa Rotary Club, and we are working on a reading room in Metu. Through those efforts, I have come to know three more inspiring Rotarians: Dereje Zegeye, past president of Addis Ababa Rotary, and Sally Porter, one of my co-sponsors and a former librarian (in other words, rockstar!), and Dave Spicer, another wonderful co-sponsor and fellow attorney. We are working with two Rotary Clubs in Addis, including Azeb’s Rotary Club, Addis Ababa West, to grow the number of reading rooms across Ethiopia in the coming years. We are excited to have wide support in the US and Ethiopia for a country-wide approach. More details to come.
Creating the right content is still the key. Quality books in heart languages that reflect the local cultures and stories are rare but without these books, literacy efforts will continue to fall short. Creating them is very challenging and requires resources and a wide range of talents that are not common. There is a reason no one has tried this approach before. But we now see that we also need to continue to locally print our books in a variety of languages and collaborate with like-minded individuals and organizations like Rotary, IBBY, and more with broad reach and skills to close the gap. Rotary has come close to eliminating polio with their vaccine program in collaboration with other organizations. I see an opportunity for them to do the same with illiteracy in Ethiopia and beyond.
To make these ambitious goals a reality, we need to continue to increase funding to locally print our books in all languages needed. The investment required is significantly larger than our current budget. So, we continue to seek out more donors, sponsors and grants.
We are excited to collaborate with Rotary Clubs globally. Please connect us if you know of one or are a fellow Rotarian. We can see a future where all children in Ethiopia get the chance to learn to read with high-quality books in their first language. Help us make that MAGIC happen. And we together can set an example that can be used in other locations with similar challenges.