The Rwanda’s Kinyarwanda book publishing company Edition Bakame is to get US$ 10,000 on 9, September, 2008 at the (IBBY) the International Board on books for young people in the 31st congress in Copenhagen, Demark.

Edition Bakame that was established in 1995 and the Reading Promotion Project by Action with Lao children in Japan are among the 11 children’s books publishing companies that emerged the best in making a lasting contribution to reading promotion for children and young people in the 2008 IBBY- Asahi Award.

Edition Bakame does not only publish reading books in Kinya-rwanda, it also publishes copies written in French and English.

According to the press release of 7, 2006-2008, the IBBY warmly congratulated the two outstanding projects for their creative and effective approaches to helping children enter the world of books and reading.

Speciose Karangwa one of Edition Bakame’s administrators told The Children’s Times that since 1995, the company has published 30 titles with the total print run exceeding 450,000copies.

She further said that every term at least 25 copies of different books are distributed for free in deferent schools. This aims at promoting the culture of reading among the young generation said Karangwa.

However Karangwa said that, there’s still a long way to go in promoting the culture of reading in Rwanda.

A big number of parents show no interest in helping their children read. Parents deliberately ignore to buy for their children reading books yet they have the capacity to do it, Karangwa added.

Children learn by imitating others, if parents read, then definitely their children would read. Let us instill the behaviour of reading among the young ones, by reading and buying reading books for them.

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