What Book Dash Has Achieved in Just a Decade

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Millions of books donated, over 500 translations published and a decade of making the journey to literacy that much more accessible for children and their families. Book Dash has had a very busy first ten years, and they’re not slowing down any time soon!

Cape Town, South Africa (15 November 2024) — This year, Cape Town-based non-profit organisation Book Dash celebrates a decade of impact.

A journey that began in 2014 when friends in the publishing industry decided to put their skills together to create accessible African storybooks for more children, today Book Dash is a fully-fledged movement behind many success stories all over the world.

“Ten years ago, the vision that ‘every child should own a hundred books by the age of five’ came into being. An organisation called Book Dash followed, to turn that utopian idea into a reality,” writes Book Dash Executive Director Julia Norrish.

“Why so many books? Why so early? The truth is, the books (beautiful as they are) are a means to an end. Really, Book Dash is a bold project of social and economic upliftment, focused on a key lever for change: books in homes.”

Julia adds:

“For a decade now, this is what we’ve done: massively increase access to amazing books for young children through an innovation publishing model. That is why we call Book Dash a ‘social impact’ publisher. We create and distribute books as our core work, but how and why we do that is driven by the dizzying potential of a world where every child owns books from birth.”

Book Dash works through a unique publishing model. At different 12-hour events dubbed Book Dashes, volunteer creatives join forces to create unique storybooks to nourish young minds across a spectrum of age-appropriate topics.

Thereafter, the books can be enjoyed freely, while hard copies are also distributed to children in different communities across South Africa.

Recently, Book Dash shared just how much they’ve achieved in their decade. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot!

Over ten years, the organisation has distributed 4,481,260 books! 79% were donated while 21% were sold.
566 translations were published.
All 777 of their books are included on the World Bank’s Early Learning Resource Network.
Their distribution partners report that thanks to their books, 74% of families read more frequently.
This year alone, Book Dash managed their biggest print run with over 600,000 books in 11 languages.
They also distributed 1,247,528 books in 2024, with 88% of the books donated.
The Book Dash model is also being replicated all over the world, and in Luxembourg, a youth agency hosted an event where they created ten new trilingual books.

Over 4 million books in 10 years is no small feat. Neither is the news that, thanks to this work, children are gaining months of additional learning time while struggling readers are catching up. Beyond the children, Book Dash shares that internal project data found that books in homes are building reading habits that caregivers benefit from, while sharing has been more widespread as 78% of children who receive books reportedly shared them with siblings or neighbours.

You can learn more about Book Dash and freely enjoy their books online here.