Book Dash

Book Dash is an African social impact publisher and early years' book-gifting organisation (NPO) with the vision that “Every child should own a hundred books by the age of five”, long before they enter school. Our work and vision is based on evidence and global precedent that getting great quality, relevant books to very young children to own is a proven way of improving their lifelong trajectory of economic, emotional and academic prosperity. We gather creative professionals who volunteer to create new, African story books that anyone can freely translate, print an distribute. Then we work with partners to get those books to preschool children and their families. All our books are also available online for global free access to all our books here: https://bookdash.org/books/ Our Theory of Change - At Book Dash, we believe that: If we create, translate and print new, high-quality, open-licensed African children’s books, using an innovative publishing model that hugely reduces the time and cost of doing so And we share books online under a CC-BY open license, so anyone can use, share and re-mix them And we partner with literacy, early learning and health care organisations and funders to print and distribute large volumes of affordable local language books to young children and families across South Africa Then preschool children will own more engaging, open-licensed African storybooks Which supports family literacy practices and responsive, playful relationships by enabling more reading and book sharing in the home Which strengthens early language development and responsive caregiving In the long term, this can lead to better school performance, more years of schooling completed, and better jobs in adulthood Ultimately, better ways to get more books into children’s hands and homes can reduce inequality and increase economic growth.