Yohannes Gebregeorgis
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Yohannes Gebregeorgis is an Ethiopian businessman and the founder of Ethiopia Reads, a philanthropic organization committed to bringing literacy to the children of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. In 2008, he was recognized as one of the " Top 10 Heroes of the Year" by CNN."Founder." Ethiopia Reads. 2009.Web. In 2011 he was awarded
American Library Association Honorary Membership Honorary Membership conferred by the American Library Association is the Association's highest award. "Honorary membership may be conferred on a living citizen of any country whose contribution to librarianship or a closely related field is so outs ...
.


Early life

Gebregeorgis grew up in the town of
Negele Borana : Negele Borana () is a town and separate woreda in southern Ethiopia. Located on the road connecting Addis Ababa to Moyale, it is the capital of the newly-established East Borana Zone of the Oromia Region. Negelle Borana is the largest city ...
, about 12 hours from Ethiopia’s capital,
Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...
. His mother could not read, and his father could only decipher a few words, but he was committed to providing his son with an education.Greene, Melissa Fay. "Hope." Good Housekeeping 245.4 (2007): 200-90. Print. At age 19, he picked up his first book outside of school. ‘“Books saved my life,’ Yohannes says”. From this point on, Gegregeorgis sought to read what he could get his hands on.


Education and professional life

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Yohannes Gebregeorgis was politically active and joined the resistance against the ruling military dictatorship of Ethiopia, the
Derg The Derg or Dergue (, ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when they formally "Civil government, civilianized" the ...
. He sought political asylum in the United States and emigrated there in 1982. Once in the States, Gebregeorgis pursued his B.A. and eventually got his Masters of Library Science at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...
.Lee, Janet. "Ethiopia's Storybook Hero." International Leads 23.2 (2009): 1, 7. Print He was then offered a job as the children’s librarian at the
San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco in United States. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as ''Libr ...
. There he was responsible to collect foreign language books for the children’s collection, and he soon discovered, “The library had books in more than 75 languages, but I could find none in
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
”. This spurred him on to find books written in Ethiopia’s predominant language. When he found none, he took it upon himself to write the book Silly Mammo, a traditional Ethiopian folktale, in an Amharic and English translation. He also connected with
Jane Kurtz Jane Kurtz (born April 17, 1952) is an American writer of more than thirty picture books, middle-grade novels, nonfiction, ready-to-reads, and books for educators. A member of the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in childre ...
, a children’s author, who had lived much of her childhood in Ethiopia, and she helped him publish Silly Mammo. They used the proceeds from the book to begin raising money for a literacy campaign to get books into the hands of Ethiopian children.


Ethiopia Reads

In 1998, Ethiopia Reads, the program dedicated to fostering literacy in Ethiopia, was born. In 2002, Gebregeorgis quit his job at the
San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco in United States. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as ''Libr ...
and moved back to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with 15,000 books and ready to open his first free library for children. On April 5, 2003, the Shola Children’s Library opened for the children of Ethiopia. Since then, the organization helped open 10 free school libraries. The organization also sponsors the Mobile Donkey Libraries program, designed to bring books to children in rural parts of the country where they cannot access one of the many other libraries Ethiopia Reads sponsors. Ethiopia Reads also publishes books in Amharic for young Ethiopian readers.


Selected publications

In addition to his book, ''Silly Mammo'', Gebregeorgis also wrote many reviews for ''School Library Journal'' during his time at San Francisco Public Library. A sampling is listed below. *Gebregeorgis, Yohannes. "Junior High Up: Nonfiction." School Library Journal 42.7 (1996): 104. *Gebregeorgis, Yohannes. "Grades 5 & Up: Nonfiction." School Library Journal 43.7 (1997): 100. *Gebregeorgis, Yohannes. "Preschool to Grade 4: Fiction." School Library Journal 44.8 (1998): 140.


Death

Gebregeorgis died on January 18, 2022 after a brief ilness.


References


External links

* http://www.ethiopiareads.org/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Gebregeorgis, Yohannes Living people Ethiopian philanthropists Year of birth missing (living people)