Preparation for the summer holidays

As always Vakoka Vakiteny will have some summer programme in Germany. The biggest event will be an arrangement in Baden-Baden the 22^nd of July where Vakoka Vakiteny together with other associations/ projects is invited. Initiator is Mrs Wasserburger from Mäx und Moritz Bookstore in Baden-Baden together with Mrs Schelshorn from the association. We are really looking forward to this big event. The location is very beautiful in the Lichtentaler Allee and there will surely be many interesting people. It is planned to have Malagasy music and food, and we have also been asked to present Vakoka Vakiteny and sell some Malagasy handicraft.

Another event will be the annual meeting of the Association Madagaskar Schul- und Kinderbücher e.V. Time and location is not yet confirmed, but it seems like Vakoka Vakiteny again will contribute in some parts of the meeting.

For Mparany the summer programme begins already in mid June when he will go to Bühl to have some training about printing. As an edition we consider it crucial to have knowledge about printing in order to be able to negotiate with the printing houses. Furthermore in the longer run we hope to be able to start our own printing business in Madagascar. The reason for this is the low quality and competence at the existing printing houses and the fact that there is no single printing house in Toliara. Nevertheless, it is not easy to start something like this, so in order to be able to take informed decisions we are glad that Mparany has got this training opportunity.

If you who read this have knowledge about printing or want to give us advices we are be very grateful if you would contact us.

Ich kehre zurück, Dadabé

Finally the manuscript of the Malagasy version of the book about Todisoa is finished and we only have some few days with work on the layout left before we can send it to Madagascar. The title will be the same as the German, in Malagasy “Hiverina aho, Dadabe” and here is the preliminary cover. Inside there are 180 pages and around 40 black and white pictures like the one on the cover. The book suits youth from 14 years of age according to the test readings that have been conducted in Madagascar.

The German book is on the recommendation list for quality literature on librikon.de. We are very glad for this recommendation because it shows that also people enjoy and value this book.

Todisoa

We have finally received the corrected manuscript of Todisoa and are now reworking it. We hope to be able to send it back to Madagascar soon. It has also already be test read by several 14 and 15 year old adolescents and it was received very well. The test reading will continue and be extended to some other age groups.

The man who copied the text from the handwritten manuscript from the proof-reader into the computer told us that he really liked the story and actually shed some tears because it was so sad...

Now it remains to see if we will be able to print the book before the summer of if we have to be present in Madagascar before we can print it.

Todisoa

All the pictures for the book about Todisoa are now complete and we are very satisfied. We are however still waiting for the correction which already has been finished, but not sent. Yet we have been promised to receive it soon in order to be able to revise the manuscript.

The German author, Mrs. Siege is now doing campaigns for the original German version. She will again go to Germany in May in order to read from the book and show pictures from Madagascar. Those who are interested can take a look at her web page http://www.nasrin-siege.com or contact her directly on info@nasrin-siege.com.

For German readers it might also be interesting to read this book review: Mit authentischemLeben gefüllt. This is a translated quote from the review: “This book combines the great human issues: existential fears, questions about meaning, friendship, everyday family life, playing and learning. (…) We feel with Todisoa in all her desires and fears in this completely foreign world because the author fills her with authentic life and guides us through”. Vakoka Vakiteny couldn’t agree more.

Book fair in Antsirabe

Vakoka Vakiteny participated on a book fair in Antsirabe from the 29^th of November to the 3^rd of December. Unfortunately we don’t have the pictures yet, but they will be posted as soon as we have got them.

The fair was a success! The children were excited when they heard that they just could sit down and read. When they were told that the author of the book Takoboka, Mr Ny Avana Andriamboavonjy had come to the fair, they went searching for him. Mrs Hanta says that “it was as if they were looking for the President himself”, and they did not give up until they had found him.

Further, Mrs Hanta tells that our books were among the most popular on the fair. She counted 306 readers between 5 and 45 years of age. There were also sold a few books. When the arranger of the fair saw the excitement of the people at the Vakoka Vakiteny stand, we actually got 50 % reduction of the fee for participating on the fair.

Correction of Todisoa

Finally the first correction of the Malagasy version of the book about Todisoa is finished. We hope to receive the corrected text soon, so that we will be able to know how we should go about it further on. According to Hanta the professor who corrected it did a very throughout job, so we might not have to get the whole manuscript corrected all over again, or at least only once more. Therefore we might be able to move on to test reading by the target group soon.

Radio

Here comes a picture from Hanta at the radio in Antsirabe taken in October. I didn't have the chance to post it soon after it was taken, so I post it now.
Thank you for the enthusiasm, Hanta!

Pictures from the distribution of Ampanirio

Finally we have received some more pictures from Madagascar! They show the distribution of the environment book Ampanirio to the schools Farimbona, Filadelfia and La Joie and the youth organization Green Pilots in Antsirabe. The feedback from students, teachers and the members of Green Pilots is very positive. A big thank you to ‘Grønn Hverdag’ in Stavanger!

Unwrapping with enthusiasm

The first glance into the book

Some of the students that had their contributions published in the book

Farimbona School

Ampanirio is handed over to Fanja, leader of Green Pilots Antsirabe

Green Pilots

Vakoka Vakiteny’s books in Japan

In October we got an email from Fujii Books in Kyoto in Japan who had seen our web page and wanted to buy some books from us. We sent 6 books to Japan at once, and they were displayed at a book exhibition on the 13th of October. We are very happy that our books have got some international recognition and that people in other places of the world can have the opportunity to see Malagasy children’s books.

Tamagawa Children's Library in Kanazawa City received some books from Vakoka Vakiteny through Fujii Books and Ms Azusa Kita who works at this library explains their work as follows:

Our library was open in November 2008, and fortunately the number of visitors to the library reached 500,000 this year. Books we have are mainly for children. So it can be said that we're different from other ordinary libraries.
In our library, there is a room, called World Picture Books from the start. For this room, we have collected 4,000 picture books from 100 countries so far (Including your country).
Why?
Because we think that children can know the world through picture books, and it can rear children’s curiosity and interest much. We provide story-telling in as many languages as possible. And we believe that these can bear fruit as the peace of the world someday in the future.
Therefore we've longed to collect picture books from as many countries as possible. So actually we do collect not only Malagasy picture books but also other countries' ones.

We are very glad that Dangaligny and co. are at Tamagawa Children's Library and that Japanese children also can enjoy at least the pictures!

Here is their web page http://www.lib.kanazawa.ishikawa.jp/kodomo/ (in Japanese).

Vitrine de Vakinankaratra

From Thursday 13^th to Saturday 15^th of October Vakoka Vakitenty participated on the Vitrine de Vakinankaratra, a fair and exhibition in Antsirabe arranged for the 14^th time. The reason for making this fair is to give industrial, commercial and agricultural manufacturers a chance to show their products in order to “fight regression” (source: FIOVA, the arranger of the fair: http://fiova.over-blog.com/).

Mrs Hanta reports that she had a very nice time these three days, assisted by Kathy, a young lady who has experience in marketing. There were many people visiting the stand and even the Minister of Industry Henri Rasamoela came and took a look at our books. The feedback from the Minister was very positive and he emphasised that Vakoka Vakiteny shows that it is possible to do great things with few resources and a small apparatus. Also the Major of Antsirabe, Mrs Olga Ramalason was impressed and asked for an appointment with Mrs Hanta.

The stand. Second and third from the left are Mrs Hanta and Kathy

Mrs Hanta (on the right) is showing the books to the Minister of Industry (third from the left).

Right behind the Minister is the head of FIOVA.

Mrs Hanta and Mayor of Antsirabe, Mrs Olga Ramalason are enjoying a drink

Children and youth who were passing by got the chance to sit down and read at the stand and totally there were sold 33 books. People were impressed by the quality of the books and they gave much positive feedback. However, Vakoka Vakiteny also received suggestions for improvement and ideas for further production.


The pictures in this post were taken by some journalists covering the fair. However, Mrs Hanta promises to send some more pictures that show the stand, taken by friends. We will post those as soon as we receive them.

Vakoka Vakiteny on RTA radio

Mrs Hanta will be interviewed directly on Radio Télévision Antsirabe (RTA) tomorrow morning. She will tell about the work of Vakoka Vakiteny and the importance of books. Further she will inform about where it is possible to purchase the books and how schools can contact Vakoka Vakiteny if they are interested.

Mrs Hanta will also participate on “Vitrine de Vakinankaratra”, an exhibition where different products from the region of Vakinankaratra are exposed. She will make a stand with the books and products of Vakoka Vakiteny. It will take place October 13 to 15 at the avenue in front of the railway station in Antsirabe.

In addition she will train students and teachers at the Farimbona school in Antsirabe about books and literature on Monday. This is in connection with the distribution of Ampanirio, the environment book.

We will of course cover her activities on the blog and we also hope to be able to share some pictures.

The web page is updated

Mparany has worked hard for several weeks now and taught himself how to update the Vakoka Vakiteny web page, www.vakiteny.org.

We have made modifications in the structure of the page and replaced some information. Now we are more satisfied with it. The association has its own space on the page (http://www.vakiteny.org/Association.htm) where the membership application form can be downloaded, and all our newsletters can be downloaded from http://www.vakiteny.org/Newsletter.htm.

If you should find some problems with the page, please tell us. We are still in the “learning by doing” phase, so we are happy to receive any feedback.

New pictures

Here are two of the ten new pictures we have received from Nassar, our illustrator for the youth novel about Todisoa. They show Antohomadinika, one of the poorest quarters in the capital Antananarivo.

Report from Hanta

Today we had a short meeting on Skype with Hanta, our coworker in Madagascar. She tells that she has worked with the distribution of Ampanirio, the environment book, and Uncle Tefy. Furthermore she has also sold some copies of Uncle Tefy and done publicity for this book in Antsirabe. The feedback from people is very positive, she reports. She has also presented Uncle Tefy to the “Alliance Franco-Malgache” in Antsirabe.

The cover of the geography book has to be strengthened a bit since the back of some of the first books we received from the printing house had a tendency to dissolve. Last week Hanta visited the printing house. Unfortunately she could not collect all the resting copies, but we hope that the last covers soon will be glued.

There have already been finished and delivered 10 new black and white pictures for the book about Todisoa, which will be scanned and sent to us this week.

Hanta has had much work to do during this first month. But it has been interesting and enjoyable, she says.

Vakoka Vakiteny’s webpage

Now the webpage of Vakoka Vakiteny is up and run again with updated contact details and some updates in our book assortment. We will update it further as soon as possible. At least you can now click into our page and get more information about our work and philosophy. We have also updated the page about our sponsors/ partners.

We apologize if there still should be problems with some links, buttons or pictures on the page.

Events in Baden-Baden and Gernsbach

On Friday 15th July Mparany and Sophie had two small gatherings with supporters and sponsors of Vakoka Vakiteny in Baden-Baden and Gernsbach in Germany.

In the morning we visited the Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium in Gernsbach to thank the school for their generous donations during last school year. With help of the Gymnasium we were able to print the geographic picture book in 1000 copies. After a short meeting with the headmaster Mr. Beil and the responsible teacher Mrs. Rauffmann we met the students in the canteen. We were surprised that so many were interested as the meeting was voluntary. We received many questions from the students about the geography book, our work and the general situation in Madagascar. It was especially pleasing to meet many students who had listened to our presentation about Madagascar and Vakoka Vakiteny at the school last year. Afterwards we spoke with two students from the student council who were very eager to continue the support and make publicity for our work in Madagascar.

In the afternoon the association supporting Vakoka Vakiteny, “Förderverein Madagaskar Schul- und Kinderbücher e.V.” had their annual meeting in the home of board member Mrs. Schelshorn (2nd from the right on the picture) in Baden-Baden. Following this assembly the 9 members of the association and 7 other interested people came to listen to our report about the activities during the last school year and look at our new books. It was a very enjoyable evening where we discussed both the work and the general situation in Madagascar. In addition we received inspiration, suggestions and feedback.

A great thank you goes to Mrs. Schelshorn for her hospitality. Furthermore we want to thank the staff and students at the Gymnasium and the association board for arrangements and support.

Presentation of two new coworkers

This post was published a week ago but due to internet problems it suddenly “disappeared”. Here it comes again:

Mrs Hantanirin’i Joa, 39 years old and former teacher acts as our replacement in Vakoka Vakiteny during the period we will be away from Madagascar. Among her responsibilities will be to distribute and sell books, collect and pay the new books from the printing house and administer the correction and illustration of the Malagasy version of Nasrin Siege’s book about the girl Todisoa.

Together with Mrs Hanta, the young man Jean Elysé will work temporarily with the correction of the book about Todisoa. He will receive the corrected manuscript from the proofreaders and send out a new version to the next proofreader.
 

Two new books and other news

There have happened many things since last time we posted on this blog. First of all two books are now printed. The first one is Ampanirio, the environment book, which is our first book printed on recycled paper. We are very satisfied with the quality of the print on this paper and will be happy to be able to distribute the first copies to the participating schools already next week.

The second book is the geography book with the new title “Fantaro ny Nosintsika”, which means “Get to know our island”. Also this book is now laying out for sale and distribution in Madagascar in this very moment.

On Saturday the 2nd of July we met the pupils in the village Ambohimanambola who received the book Dadanaivo Tefy printed with the means of the company Henzmann. Some of them had also brought their parents, and they all were very positive towards the book.

Some of their comments were:

“I found it very funny when Uncle Tefy stole the food from the herdsmen and burned his mouth.”
Pupil

“We like the story and especially the pictures inside the book.”
Pupil

“I see how fast the children who have received this book develop their reading skills in school. Their advantage compared to children not owning a book is incredibly!”
Teacher

“Sometimes in the evening our children read aloud to those not going to school and explain the story of Uncle Tefy. They are having a good time. Also we grownups like to take a look into the book.”
Father

Sophie and Mparany have now come to Germany where we will stay about one year due to studies in Norway. Our temporary replacement for Vakoka Vakiteny in Madagascar, Mrs Hanta, has already been working with enthusiasm for some weeks. We will soon introduce her officially on this blog.

Our web page www.vakiteny.org has been down and under construction for some time now. However, we hope to have it repaired soon and apologize for the trouble this may have caused.

Pictures for the book about Todisoa

Our illustrator for the youth novel about the street girl Todisoa, Nassar, is a young man from Sakaraha, a small town east of Toliara. He has already finished several drafts, and will now begin to make the about 40 small black and with pictures for the book.

We are very glad that we have found this talented illustrator, and we believe that the pictures will give the book an attractive appearance. However, the pictures shown here are some first drafts, and will not necessarily be the pictures which we are going to use.

Distribution of Uncle Tefy at La Joie

Today 70 Uncle Tefy’s were distributed at the school La Joie in Antsirabe donated by Mrs. Ebba Hauken and the municipality of Stavanger, Norway.

Our coworker, Hanta Nirin’i Joa distributed them together with the Norwegian Peace Corps volunteer Trine Lund. All the students in 6th to 9th grade received one book each and Hanta read the story aloud for them. It was obvious that they liked the book, and they were very active in the discussion afterwards. They all would have liked to continue the reading and discussion because the 30 minutes scheduled went so fast.

Afterwards there was a short meeting with some of the teachers about the use of literature in school. They promised to make a small library so that all the pupils can get the chance to read the books. The school has previously received all Vakoka Vakiteny books, and they also got some books in English today. Those were not from Vakoka Vakiteny.

This was the first official mission for Hanta in the name of Vakoka Vakiteny, and we are very glad to see that she has the talent to fascinate youth. We are sure that today was not the last time Hanta will promote literature.

Both pictures by Trine Lund