Deborah Ahenkorah

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2011

Deborah Ahenkorah

The Golden Baobab Prize

http://www.goldenbaobab.org/

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

Bold Idea: Stimulate literacy and cultural understanding by inspiring a new generation of African authors to write children’s literature to which African youth can relate.

Organization: GBP is an award that inspires creation of African literature for young readers and annually calls for unpublished short stories and awards monetary prizes. Outstanding stories are connected with publishers in Africa and abroad. GBP produces stellar works to supplement educational curricula, open up new windows of thinking for youth, provide a voice for African people and encourage mutual cultural understanding. It also promotes workshops and training to further stimulate the youth literature market in Africa.

Biography:

Moment of Obligation: In 2007 I started a student group to organize book drives for Africa. One day I came across a children's book with illustrations of a young black girl. I realized that of thousands of books we had collected, that was the first one with images that looked anything like the African children we were supporting. In my own childhood in Ghana, every children’s book I read took place in a foreign land. Suddenly book drives were not enough. Africans need to produce African children’s books for their youth. I started a literary award, the Golden Baobab Prize, to make this happen.

Book every social entrepreneur should read: How to Change the World by David Bornstein

Favorite Quote: "Because it is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior." -Chinua Achebe