Book Dash has been adding books to children’s personal libraries for years now; they gift children the luxury of books and boost literacy in the process.
South Africa (06 June 2023) – Book Dash believes that every child should own 100 books by the age of 5 so to make that happen, they hand out free books to children, many in the very languages the children speak at home.
To create a nation of lifelong readers and support literacy among youth, research shows that every child should own and have access to storybooks. Yet, books are expensive, often seen as a luxury, and owning just one storybook is out of the reach of millions of South African children.
Enter Book Dash, a literacy awareness organisation that creates and distributes storybooks to children in need. They have spent the last several years boosting literacy for children through unique and relatable books.
“Research shows that owning books is a key factor in early development and academic success: more important than socio-economic status and equaled only by parents’ level of education.
By working together to increase book ownership among South African children, we could effectively disrupt a cycle of inequality for good. In addition to creating and publishing new books, we source the funding to print hundreds and thousands of copies to give freely to children through partner organisations.”
Book Dash is a registered non-profit organisation and has an innovative model to create and share new, quality South African children’s books that are highly affordable. Over the past few years, more than 128 original storybooks, across eleven indigenous languages, have been created by volunteer creative teams at 12-hour events called Book Dashes.
“Book Dash’s unique 12-hour publishing model vastly reduces the time and costs associated with creating such books. Then, we share them freely with the world and work with funding and distribution partners to provide physical copies in abundance to hundreds of thousands of children and families to own.
We’re so proud to provide our books to 170+ partners all over the country who get them meaningfully to children to take home and own. Every book gets us closer to our grand vision: “Every child should own a hundred books by the age of five”.”
You can find all the books here. You will be able to read them and if you would like, purchase the physical copies to add to your own child’s library. If you would like to get involved with the project, you can do so here.
by 