From PR Web

Worldreader (worldreader.org), the nonprofit aiming to boost literacy by providing digital books to children and families throughout Africa and the rest of the developing world, today announced a new method of getting e-books to millions of people on a device they already own: their mobile phone.

Until now, Worldreader’s mission of getting e-books into the hands of people in the developing world functioned via e-readers. To date, Worldreader’s programs in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania have shown inspiring results of children reading more, providing students access to over 440,000 e-books in English, Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda, and Twi. In fact, in the first few months of 2013, Worldreader has already added e-reader programs at the Kibera Girls’ Soccer Academy in Nairobi, Kenya, and expanded work in Ghana to reach over 1,800 new young children and families in Ghana’s Eastern Region.

Now, as a way to extend its reach, Worldreader has introduced “Worldreader Mobile,” a cell phone application designed for low-end “feature phones.” After months of beta testing, Worldreader Mobile now boasts 500,000 active readers a month in Africa, India and the rest of the world. During testing in January, children and adults consumed the equivalent of 17,000 books on their feature phones using Worldreader Mobile— which has 1,200 books available including CK-12 textbooks, health books provided by the World Health Organization, English language content from the US State Department, stories from African’s Caine Prize winners and Harlequin romance novels.

Read more at prweb.com