Rwanda Promoting the culture of reading in Rwanda
On the 28th March, 2016 Save the Children through the USAID founded Mureke Dusome project and the Rwandan Children’s Book initiative held another monthly Abana Writer’s Café event at the Innovation village, the rooftop of the Kigali Public Library.
Abana Writers’ café is a monthly event that serves as a platform for upcoming and established writers, poets, artists, storytellers and other enthusiasts with a keen interest in children’s books to come together to support the production of more and better children’s books. It is also an opportunity for book sector players to spot and recruit new talent, and for budding writers and illustrators to get peer feedback and suggestions on their new work.
In March, the Abana Writers’ café was enlightened by a presentation of one of the local editors and regular member of the event, Francois Regis on the role of illustrations in the children books, it was an animated discussion from both amateurs and experienced people in that area and that made it more interesting as the participants learnt from each other. As part of the event, a children’s storybook is read aloud to the participants and this session was conducted by Sofia Cozzolino the RCBI Director.
“I have always been afraid of writing for children, but through AWC I learnt that it’s all about telling them a fun story, and am definitely going to do it!” - Dusabe Gabriel a photographer and illustrator at Abana Writers’ café.
As the objective of the event states, Abana writers’ café is a platform for writers to read their stories and receive peer feedback and suggestions. At this event we had two lovely stories from different writers and after some work on them, they will be made into books that will be added to the growing number of Kinyarwanda children’s storybooks.
In April 2015 RCBI hosted its first Abana Writers’ Café, and a year down the line, more than two storybooks that passed through the event are now published and can be used by the children around the country.
