[Akiddie\Dominic Onyekachi]
Onyekachi: “I wrote a few stories for her and I got my friend to illustrate. She liked it, her friends in school liked it too. And that’s when I really thought about writing more books and putting them in a place where many more children can access them.”
Photo: YouTube
Dominic Onyekachi (above) and his friends, Fanan Dala and Tolulope Wojuola, have launched Akiddie a web-based platform producing children stories for African children.
When Dominic Onyekachi set out to read his 6-year-old niece a story, he did not anticipate that the simple task would lead him to create a digital collection of African stories.
After going through her mini library, he found that many of her books were foreign and had very little African representation.
Onyekachi told CNN that he wanted her to read books that reflect her culture, so he took it upon himself to write stories for her.
“I wrote a few stories for her and I got my friend to illustrate. She liked it, her friends in school liked it too. And that’s when I really thought about writing more books and putting them in a place where many more children can access them,” he said.
The 23-year-old said he realized the unavailability of children’s books reflecting the continent was a much bigger problem after visiting Balogun market in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial center.
Many of the Africa-related books he found at the market were for advanced readers in secondary school, he said.
“I spent a whole day checking bookshops and only came out with two books. And when I went online, there were so many complaints about this problem,” he added.
In May, with help from two friends, Fanan Dala and Tolulope Wojuola, Onyekachi launched Akiddie, a web-based platform providing access to African storybooks for children like his niece.
Akiddie features storybooks based on African history and characters for children in different languages.
Read rest of story here: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/21/africa/africa-storybook-intl/index.html
