30 digital stories unveiled to advance reading culture

A collection of 30 stories that empower women and show women as protagonists and change agents of the future has been unveiled in Abuja.

The digital story collection was launched at the weekend by Worldreader, the global non-profit organization that helps the world read in partnership with Library Aid Africa.

The Keynote speaker at the event, Samira Jibir, encouraged young girls across Nigeria to look beyond the basic uses of digital literacy tools and use them to create a better and more fulfilling life for themselves.

The event was also used to launch book club engagement activities in Nigeria to provide participants the opportunity to share ideas, challenge assumptions, and elevate the status of women and girls.

Worldreader’s Inspire Us project in West Africa, supported by Helen Gurley Brown’s Pussycat Foundation, is advancing West African authors and changing the conversation about gender norms through the power of stories, delivered via mobile phones.

The Regional Director, West Africa for Worldreader, Ethel Sakitey, said, “We are grateful to Helen Gurley Brown’s Pussycat Foundation for supporting the Inspire Us project. Through this partnership, we are able to support West African authors and bring empowering digital stories about women to readers.”

By addressing critical issues, like violence against women, family planning, and women’s autonomy and providing positive literary role models, the Inspire Us collection of stories offers mixed-gender bookclubs a chance to interrogate these issues within the safe space of fiction.