A few months ago, Cadbury launched its Give a Generous Voice Story Time campaign that saw partners, key thought leaders on early child education come together to unveil its homegrown audio library and launch a campaign that encourages storytellers to record their voices. The audio stories are loaded onto an e-library at Cadbury Africa to allow families enjoy story time with their loved ones. Today I’m having loads of fun going through site and living in their world for a bit with my four-year-old niece. There are ten stories on the site, and I asked the small girl to pick a few which we could listen to together. Here are summaries of what we’ve been listening to.
My new home
This is a story about a little girl named Kemunto who tells the story of how her family moved to a new town. It is a well-rounded story in which she talks about her pet, her favourite book, the beauty of our country Kenya and the change between her old home and the new one. It is a short 1.42 minutes written by Stephen Oduor and voiced by Tatiana Karanja.
A season of butterflies
A beautiful story in which a grandmother teaches her grandson Mbugua some life lessons through a story about how butterflies come to be. Grandma tells the little boy that everything in this life has beautiful times and ugly times and uses the stages of a butterfly to demonstrate this. The story is written by Cecilia Wangui and voiced by Caroline Mutoko.
Queen Sifa
This story is written by Judy L. Nyakio and narrated by Njugush and demonstrates the importance of family and forgiveness. It is about a young queen named Sifa and how her family was always her rock when growing up. Then she got older and had some episodes of indiscipline. The story shows how this was solved through dialogue and forgiveness.
Hare and hyena
This is a typical grandma story as they were told by grandmothers in their kitchens. It is a beautifully narrated story with emotions and intonations that come through in the narrator’s voice. It brings out the wits of a hare against a hyena and I feel that it teaches children how to get out of tight situations. The story is written by Mwende Stardust and narrated by Soila Curtis.
Luna and Kilo
I found this to be a very relatable story about cats and dogs, which many kids would identify with since many homes have them as pets. Through the escapades of a cat named Luna and his friend Kilo, children get to learn about the virtues of friendliness and sharing through two more characters who unfold in the story. It is written by Caroline Mwaniki and narrated by Kimanzi Chikula.
The Cadbury’s audio books site is an initiative by the company to bridge the gap in storytelling, since 2/3 Kenyan parents feel they need to spend more quality time with their children. Cadbury want to change this by reprioritizing moments of connection through story time by making it a ritual. And what better way to do this than having a central place where families can go and listen to stories together.
