Highlighting the Upcoming Asian Festival of Children's Content

and Project Splash! Asia

 by Corinne Robson, Projects Manager, WaterBridge Outreach: Books + Water

The excitement is building for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content being held May 30 - June 4 in Singapore. The AFCC is an annual event put on by the National Book Development Council of Singapore that brings together content creators and producers with parents, teachers, librarians and anyone interested in quality Asian content for children around the world. Lots of exciting events are planned this year; check out the featured speakers and programme by clicking here and the AFCC Facebook page here. This year's country of focus is India which is of particular interest to us due to our book and water projects there.  

I attended AFCC in 2011 and again last year when I was on the judging panel for the Singtel Picture Book award as well as being a member of the Project Splash Asia! committee. In celebration of 2013 being designated as the International Year of the Water, I worked with colleagues in Singapore to produce an annotated bibliography and collection of favourite water-themed children’s stories from Asia. This publication, known as Splash Asia!, was launched during AFCC 2013 and a pdf download is available here. As Festival Director Evelyn Wong wrote "The bibliography, prepared in collaboration with the National Library, will be a resource for parents, teachers and libraries that will not only spark the imagination, creativity and pure joy of reading, but also inspire children to value the importance of water in our lives, to think about the challenges faced by children and families around the world, and to want to learn what we can do to make a difference." 

I will be returning to Singapore for AFCC 2014 and look forward to sharing about WaterBridge Outreach's books and water projects with attendees. Look for updates from the Festival on our Facebook page and do let us know if you are planning to attend. Also check out our recent interview with Festival Director Emily Lim in which we discussed how WaterBridge Outreach grew from the award-winning Paper Tigers.org,  an internationally recognized non-profit website about books in English for young readers.

Published Spring 2014

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