The Little Hands Trust promotes and supports the development of children’s literature in Africa. It is inspired by the understanding that the way to a child’s heart and mind is through a story. Its core understanding is that children of all ages become inspired and creative when they have meaningful, enjoyable and interesting reading materials.

Its aims include:

• • To support initiatives that promote reading for enjoyment.
  • To mentor African literary artists, including writers, illustrators and editors, to produce creative and appropriate children’s storybooks for children of various ages with a particular focus on early childhood (birth to 9 years).
  • To collaborate with African publishers to increase and sustain the publication of children’s books in African languages.
  • To initiate and support translations of stories between African languages, from African languages to ex-colonial languages and from ex-colonial languages to African languages.
  • To help educate adults about the importance and significance of reading to and with children.

Over the years, the Little Hands Trust has raised funds to translate, co-publish and distribute several children’s books in African languages and English, including a Pan African set of 16 Little Hands books in 23 languages, the Little Hands Books for Babies in 11 languages,  three best-selling classics by Lio Lionni in five languages, Who is King? in five languages, and George’s Secret Key to the Universe in IsiXhosa and IsiZulu.

Little Hands trustees are Carole Bloch, Thando Gobe, Arabella Koopman and Ntombizanele Mahobe.

PBO: 930 036 854; NPO: 124 216