Bakame
Bakame is a Rwandan children's book publisher.
history
Out of personal concern, Agnes Gyr-Ukunda, who was born in Rwanda, founded the children's book publisher Bakame Editions in Kigali in 1995 . After the genocide in Rwanda, she wanted to create a cultural basis for the many traumatized children to deal with the psychological consequences and hoped to make a contribution to promoting peace with literature for children and young people . The concept of the publishing house is based on the model of the Swiss youth publications SJW, which assumed the patronage for the foundation. The association “Books for Children in Rwanda” supports the publisher professionally and financially. The name of the publisher was given by the legendary figure «Bakame». Every child in Rwanda is familiar with Bakame, the clever rabbit.
profile
The "Bakame Editions" produce good children's and youth literature based on their own culture in the national language of Kinyarwanda. In order for the books to be accessible and affordable for all children, the circulation must be high and the prices low. In order for this to be possible, patrons are needed to cover the printing costs. The distribution goes mainly through the schools. The publisher also promotes reading culture in a country where literacy is still very young. The “Bana dusome” backpack libraries, which are passed on from school to school and from classroom to classroom, are a stimulating and successful Bakame project. The backpack libraries are accompanied by a reading animator.
Milestones
Major milestones in the development of the «Bakame Editions» are the construction of our own publishing house in Kigali in 2005, the «BolognaRagazzi Award New Horizons» for the picture book «Ubucuti bw'imbeba n'inzovu», the international award from the IBBY -Asahi Reading Promotion Prize 2008 and the publication of a school grammar in 2010.
The association “Books for Children in Rwanda” has been certified by ZEWO since 2003 .
The Rwandan Council of Ministers recognized the publishing house as a non-profit organization in 2002 and confirmed it in 2012.
In 2013 the publisher won the “Best Children's Publisher 2013 for Africa” award at the Children's Book Fair in Bologna.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Zewo Foundation
- ^ Bologna Children's Book Fair, Winners 2013 Website.Retrieved April 29, 2013.