When our library at EPP Ambovo first opened, only seven children came.
Our Angavo-Mandrare Landscape Education Specialist, Felice Anjarasoa, greeted each one and handed them a book to read. But something unexpected began to happen. One by one, the children kept returning the book they’d been given and asking for a different one. At first, it seemed like simple curiosity — kids sampling titles, looking for a story that caught their interest. It took Felice a little while to understand what was really going on.
The children believed it was that particular book they could not read.
The heartbreaking truth was far simpler, and far more urgent: none of them could read at all, because none of them had ever even held a book before. Growing up without access to reading materials, they had no way of knowing that the challenge wasn’t the story in front of them — it was that reading itself had never been within reach.
Just three months later, most of the children at the school can now read.
Fifth grader Meliza beautifully read Ibitika to her class, showed the illustrations, and summarized the story. She told us she loves reading because it helps her gain knowledge and learn new things. Her dream is to become a nurse.
A book can do more than teach a child to read. It can help her imagine an entirely different future — and at EPP Ambovo, that future is just beginning to take shape, one page at a time.