According to CNN that discovered him, Dominic Onyekachi is using the web-based platform Akiddie to feature and share stories with African characters for children.
The 23-year-old said he realized the unavailability of children’s books reflecting the African ways of life was a much bigger problem. He said he noticed this scarcity while in search of Books on African stories and legends after visiting Balogun market in Lagos, a commercial suburb in Lagos noted for different wares and books.
Onyekachi told CNN that he wanted books that reflect African culture, so he took it upon himself to rewrite African stories in digital forms with the right Emoji’s.
Everything started when I went through my Niece Library and found that all her books were English storybooks and none on an African folktale. “I wrote a few stories, and I got my friend to illustrate. She liked it, her friends in school liked it too. And that’s when I thought about writing more books and putting them in a place where many more children can access them,” he said. This move eventually led to the launch of Akiddie, a web-based platform providing access to African storybooks for children like his niece.
Akiddie features storybooks based on African history and characters for children in different languages. It currently has 21 books available to readers in different languages. Five of them are free, while the others require a subscription of 600 Naira (about $1.55) every month to access, Onyekachi said.
He added that Akiddie has more than 1,200 users, and six schools in Lagos currently make use of the platform.
The plan, Onyekachi said, is to keep creating and sharing more stories to reach more children in other parts of Africa.
“More children should have characters to look up, characters that have their hair, look like them and share their culture.”
