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.