Having previously worked as an English Teacher with the Diapalante Education Centre in Senegal, I took on a very special project to fill their library with culturally relevant storybooks. The challenge wasn't just creative, it was deeply human and personal.

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Imagine a world where every book you have access to tells a story of a world you don't recognise. French is the official language of Senegal, and most French-language books available in the area tell French stories, which leaves Diapalante's African students out of the picture, quite literally.

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As Project Lead for the African Story Book project, we worked with students on the ground to write relevant stories from the community and translate them into Wolof, French, and English. I then orchestrated a team of 16 UK-based illustrators to bring these narratives to life, acting as a cultural translator to ensure the artists understood the nuances of the communities these stories would serve.

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The result? A collection of open-access educational resources that didn't just reach the Diapalante Centre's classrooms, but became accessible to communities across Africa to translate into their own local language, multiplying the impact of the books far beyond our original scope.