Want to help Ethiopian kids read?

If you are interested in getting books into the hands of Ethiopian kids, here is a great website: http://www.ethiopiareads.org/.  Ethiopia Reads, begun by award-winning children’s author Jane Kurtz, is building libraries in towns and villages all around Ethiopia. They have created over 65 libraries, adding them in every region of the country.  And here are a couple facts from their website, to press home why these libraries are needed!

Did you know?

  • Ethiopia has the second highest population in Africa at 82,950,000.
  • The population of ages 0-14 is 26.8%, or 22,230,600.
  • 2,389,945 of those kids are not in school.
  • Only 69.1% of females complete primary school.
  • Only 75.3% of males complete primary school.
  • Youth literacy is 44.6%
  • Adult literacy is 42%
  • This ranks them 195th in the world in adult literacy.

Take a quick jazz tour of Ethiopia

In this remarkable video, you can get a quick feel for the unique jazz tradition in Ethiopia, which reached a peak in the early 1970’s just before the fall of Emperor Selassie and just before our family returned to the country under the Marxist regime of Col. Mengistu–the era portrayed in my new memoir Running to the Fire (University of Iowa Press, 2015).  Though the jazz clubs went out of business, we would hear the music in restaurants, serving as a quiet reminder of better times.  Today, Ethiopian jazz is flowering again and one of the great groups of the past–The Ethiopiques–are getting long overdue attention.  Listen and learn:

ethiopiques