Story summary: 

Goa is a 13-year-old boy and a 4th grade student at a primary school that is supported by Save the Children’s Educate a Child project in the Gambella Region of Ethiopia. Goa’s family are subsistence farmers who engage in small-scale farming and livestock raising for a living.

Covering 30 schools in Gambella Region, the Educate a Child-funded Increase Access to Quality Basic Education for Out of School Children in Ganmbella Region, Ethiopia, project established reading corners that are transforming children’s lives by helping them discover the joy of reading. Through this program, over 23,000 children have developed literacy and reading skills, benefited from the reading corner and quality learning materials supplied by Save the Children to the schools, and trained teachers.

Strong quotes: 

"Our biggest concern is the lack of enough reading space for all, and there is also a shortage of reading books."

"Save the Children has established reading corners at school and supplied us with storybooks that help us improve our reading and writing skills."

"I enjoy reading the beautiful storybooks provided by Save the Children. I improved my reading ability through reading the storybooks. "My Agnoac language teacher Kiru also helps me with my readings."

Goa’s story in his own words (Quotes): 

“My name is Goa; I am thirteen years old, and I have two eldest brothers and a younger sister. I am in 4th grade this year at a primary school in the nearby Abobo village in Gambella Region, Ethiopia.

The Agnoac and English languages are my two favorite subjects in the class. I particularly like the Agnoac language because it is easy for me to learn and understand. I also like my math lessons. Our math teacher teaches us additions, subtraction, shapes, and measurements through different games. The games are fun and easy to learn. I am now able to easily multiply and make additions to numbers in the shortest time possible.

Save the Children provided us with a lot of support, such as school uniforms, school bags, learning materials, and supplementary reading books. They also established the reading corner in our school. I enjoy reading the lovely storybooks provided by Save the Children. Before this reading corner was established here in our school, we had difficulty reading and writing, and the only reading materials we had were the textbooks that the school provided. Now, after this reading corner, I am reading, writing better, and am able to improve my reading skills each day.

This support helped me improve my school performance and enabled me to improve my reading and writing skills. Each day, through reading the books, we learn new things and improve our reading skills. Save the Children has not only supplied us with storybooks and learning materials, but they have also built new classrooms that are clean, safe, and comfortable.

"Atock" [about good manners] is my favorite storybook.I want to be a well-mannered and kind person myself. We wish if we could be supplied with more reading books for our school library, so that enough books would be available for everyone and it would ease the shortage of books we have in school. Save the Children has also constructed new classrooms and furnished them. Now we learn in safe and clean classrooms.

Both of my parents have always encouraged me to go to school and do better in my studies. When I grow up, I want to be a doctor. I know I need to study hard to achieve my dream. Our biggest concern right now is the shortage of storybooks, and the library does not have enough space for all the students here”.

Background / Project information 

Even though more children are in school in Gambella today than ever before, however, many lack basic skills of reading and computation. Save the Children through its EAC funded project in Gambella Region, ,is helping the schools to improve the quality of education by providing training to primary school teachers on literacy and numeracy, supplying supplementary reading materials to target schools, establishing reading corners and increasing community awareness on the importance of education for children. The training given to the teachers has enabled them to develop new skills and techniques on play based teach helping children to learn letters, read and comprehend better. 

So far, the project trained some 285 teachers on literacy and numeracy boost in 30 target schools in 11 districts and 3 refugee camps in the Gambelle Region in Western Ethiopia. Save the Children has also established reading corners in all target schools and provided them with 4671 supplementary reading books with 45 different titles.