Ethiopia Reads Book Week 2009!

I am a bit late posting on this but this week is "Ethiopia Reads" book week. There was a event at a Denver library last Saturday with a donkey and all, but we missed it due to the graduation open house. Some libraries however had celebrations on and off all week so you may want to check in your area. Ethiopia Reads is a organization founded by Yohannes Gebregeorgis. Yohannes learned to read in his village school in Ethiopia taught by Peace Corp volunteers. He later immigrated to the United States and earned a Masters Degree in Library Science. He eventually became committed to increasing the accesability of books to children in Ethiopia and he founded Ethiopia Reads in 1998. He partnered with a American author Jean Kurtz and then moved back to Ethiopia and opened the first free public library for children in Ethiopia in 2003. The library is called Shola's Childrens Library and they moved to a larger facility in June of 2008. In addition to the public library Ethiopia Reads is involved in many other programs including school library development, a publishing program, and training program among others. To learn more or to help visit their website at: http://www.ethiopiareads.org/about.htm