Nabu Organization

Program Overview

NABU is a digital reading app and mother tongue publishing platform, which addresses all three problems comprehensively and at scale. With the rise of cheap feature phones and smartphones NABU aims to eradicate illiteracy by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Having implemented, tested and iterated, many technology platforms, models and markets, NABU is now built on the three fundamental prerequisites for improving literacy at scale:

· (Content) Research demonstrates that a child needs at least 150 leveled mother tongue reading stories from grade 1-3 to learn how to read. There are marked gains in educational outcomes when children learn first in languages they speak and understand, especially for the rural, marginalized, or girl child. We work with local creative communities, training aspiring authors and illustrators to help us create early grade mother tongue collections in as little as six months. We also work with local and international publishers to license content that might be interesting to our beneficiaries.
· (Distribution) Content is useless without distribution. Where print books are not practical, we have developed the best mobile reading application for low bandwidth environments to reach children on low cost mobile devices already available in their community, at school or at home. Every page turn is tracked so we know our impact and active user rates and can instantly leverage content to a mass market.
· (Engagement) Literacy requires children to be actively engaged in reading every day. We train reading ambassadors to raise awareness of the benefits of reading. We invest in grassroots partnerships with government, businesses, NFP organizations and local media companies to help drive engagement with the app and inspire a reading culture.