Book Dash

Book Dash is a not-for-profit, South African social impact publisher of open-sourced, African picture books. Their vision is that “Every child should own a hundred books by the age of five”.

Their goal is to increase ownership and access to beautiful, affordable and relevant books for young children through an innovative open publishing and distribution model. By increasing book ownership among young children, we can effectively help to disrupt a cycle of inequality for good.

Research shows that owning books is a key factor in holistic early development and lifelong academic and economic success: the effect of owning books outweighs a child’s socio-economic status and is equalled only by parents’ level of education. They employ their unique, 12-hour book-making methodology to create beautiful new books. Book Dash gathers creative professionals who volunteer to create new, high-quality African picture books in just one day! Then, they share them with the world on their website for anyone, anywhere to freely translate, print, and distribute for children to own. They translate the books into the 11 official South African languages, and then print and distribute them directly to children across South Africa to own.

They’ve created 188 new African picture books and printed and distributed more than 3 million copies using this method. They are working towards a goal of 50 million printed books in the hands of young children by 2033