NABU and Basketball Africa League Open the Ngor Reading Corner at Hadj Baytir Samb Primary School in Dakar

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

600 children gain weekly access to 150 books in French and Wolof, four tablets loaded with NABU's multilingual library, and a dedicated digital learning station.

Dakar, Senegal, 21 July 2026 On Monday, NABU and the Basketball Africa League officially opened the Ngor Reading Corner at Hadj Baytir Samb Primary School in Dakar. The space is NABU’s first programme in Senegal and the latest in a growing network of BAL Reading Corners across the continent.

The launch brought students, teachers, partners, and community members together around a simple idea: when children have books in languages they actually speak, they read more. The event featured storytelling sessions, interactive reading activities, and what turned into a genuinely joyful afternoon of children discovering stories in Wolof for the first time.

[The Reading Corner space with books, tablets, and students reading in Wolof]

What the Reading Corner includes:

The Ngor Reading Corner is equipped with 150 printed books in French and Wolof, four digital tablets loaded with NABU’s full multilingual library and interactive learning activities, and a donated laptop and projector for group reading sessions. The space will serve over 600 children each week from both the school and the surrounding Ngor community. It is designed to work in the classroom during school hours and as a community resource outside of them.

This is not a one-off book donation. The Reading Corner is a permanent, staffed space with physical and digital content, teacher support, and a measurement framework that tracks reading activity and learning outcomes over time. The model is built to be replicated: low cost, community-owned, and language-first.

The Reading Corner represents our first programme in Senegal, where we’re partnering across the public and private sectors to embed reading directly into schools. The result: measurable learning outcomes for over 600 students, powered by local-language content in French and Wolof. It’s a model built to scale: cost-effective, replicable, and rooted in community ownership.

— Camille Park, CEO, NABU

This reading corner comes at a time when our national leaders have made it a priority to promote local languages at the primary level and to digitise educational content, while encouraging a culture of reading. What NABU and the BAL have built here supports that mission directly.

—Oumar Ndiaye, Director of Hadj Baytir Samb Primary School.

Sport is a platform. It speaks to young people. It’s the tool we use to get their attention, and when we have their attention, we can talk to them about reading. These books, translated by the teachers of this school, show how the community contributes to the effort. That’s what makes this partnership with NABU work.

— Amadou Gallo Fall, President of the Basketball Africa League

The Ngor Reading Corner builds on NABU and the BAL’s existing partnership, which has produced The Big and Magical Basketball Games (published in 8 languages) and Rocket Rukundo’s Jungle Escapade (launched at the BAL Season 6 Finals in Kigali in May 2026). This BAL Reading Corner combines physical book libraries, NABU’s digital platform, and community engagement to bring reading directly to where children are.

To date, NABU has published over 1,300 original titles in 41 languages and has reached more than 14 million children globally through its digital platforms and community-based programmes.