Children get opportunity to earn from their stories online

Michelle Wanyana of Kampala Parents School checks the Internet to see how many people have bought her story. Photo by Edgar R Batte

What you need to know:

A child submits a story to a website or to the class teacher at school

Kampala. For a while, 11-year-old Michelle Wanyana enjoyed eating bananas and one of her favourite television cartoons showed a monkey that enjoyed bananas. A story was formulated in her head. She wanted to tell it and have her friends and other children read it.
Nine-year-old Tony Kimuli on the other hand loved reading and writing stories but was afraid of borrowing books from the school library because it would be for only a few days and then he would be punished if he returned them with dog ears.
Wanyana recently got to write her story and it got published on MixaKids, a new online platform. She earns Shs2,999 every time her story is bought and downloaded.

“I first heard about MixaKids from my friends. I thought about what I could write about. I like eating bananas a lot and I also know monkeys like bananas. From that, I was able to write my first story last year. My story is about a monkey that likes to eat bananas in people’s gardens. I point out the moral of the story that stealing is bad,” 11-year-old Wanyana, a pupil of Kampala Parents School, explains. She adds that she is happy to get published and also earn from her writing.
Kimuli now gets to read Wanyana’s and other children’s books without worrying about dog ears.

The brainchild behind the digital platform, Mr David Mushabe, says increasingly, children are losing interest in attaining literacy skills.
“In fact, those in urban areas are preferring video games to reading say, a novel. But we all know the role played by literacy skills in enhancing the children’s learning and problem solving ability. Poor literacy skills are allegedly contributing to the increasing failure rate of children in national examinations,” Mr Mushabe, also owner of SMS One, explains.
Ms Scovia Nabisaso, a teacher, says she has encouraged her son to keep writing. Her son, Mr Albert Araro, published a story about the use of ox-ploughs in gardening.
“The brothers are excited that he has been published. I encourage pupils to write more and start earning. During our time, we did not make it but we can encourage our children to write and get published,” Ms Nabisaso observed.
MixaKids is an online platform that is enabling children publish their stories, and is currently running in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.

How it works
A child submits a story to a website or to the class teacher at school. The story must be original and not copied from the Internet or other books. MixaKids receives edits and approves the story. The child’s guardian/parents approve the story for publishing by signing a publishing contract on behalf of their child with MixaKids Ltd. The story is then illustrated and turned into an e-book, which is available for buying or rent by other readers across the world. Adults are also welcome to submit children’s stories.