Kande’s Story is a story about a young girl whose parents both die due to Aids. She learns more about HIV and Aids, teaches others, and finds love, support and comfort among people in the church. The story is being used to teach others in Africa about Aids.
In sub-Saharan Africa, about 5% of the adult population is HIV-infected. 15 million children have been orphaned because of Aids. While governments have been providing some education, it tends to be in the national language, which not everyone can understand.
Since the first publication of Kande’s Story in 2004, the book has been translated into 139 languages! Translation and distribution is accompanied by workshops, where facilitators relate the story to Bible passages in the mother tongue. The book helps to encourage literacy and Bible reading, where it is translated into languages with newly developed alphabets.
The impact of Kande’s Story has been phenomenal, especially because the material is produced in the mother tongue. “The government has given training on HIV,” explained Ethiopian church leader Worku Mute, “but this one is special because it is in our mother tongue.”
Socially, the training has had a significant impact. The stigma of being HIV-infected is still very strong in many places: in some villages, someone who is HIV-infected is completely ostracised, and churches teach that it is the judgment of God for personal sin. But where Kande’s Story has been used, trust is beginning to grow. You can read more about how Kande’s Story impacted the Guji Oromo community in Ethiopia on TheWordIsLife.net.
The Bible is the story of how God has loved us, and teaches us to love others. The work that Bible translators are involved in is about much more than academics and linguistics: it’s about love. Find out how you could get involved.
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Tags: Kande's Story, Literacy
[...] Story — a story used to educate people about Aids which we blogged about a couple of days ago here — is impacting lives across Africa. This report from CBN, an American Christian news channel, [...]