AKIPRESS.COM - RTI International and Mercy Corps will present 72 new and adapted books in Kyrgyz and Russian for primary grade students at the Bayalinov Republican Library for Children and Youth on the International Day of Reading Aloud.

USAID’s Okuu Keremet! Project supported local authors and illustrators who developed and designed these books. In addition to printing, Okuu Keremet! published them in digital, audio and sign-language formats.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program funded printing of additional 272,000 copies for larger coverage of schools and children. Thus, each participating school and library will receive around 500 copies of books with stories, fairy tales, poems, and other interesting school-age-appropriate content.