Author Lisa Grainger spent three months travelling through Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and Botswana, collecting stories that have been passed down by generations of gogos, or grandmothers. The result, Stories Gogo Told Me (Penguin, 2008), is a collection of 40 traditional African tales that Lisa gathered from village storytellers, farmers, and rural teachers. On her journey, she met some of the girls Camfed is supporting through school.

“Having taken the stories from villages, it didn’t feel right to profit myself, so I decided to donate proceeds from the book to Camfed,” explains Lisa, who grew up in Zimbabwe. “Camfed’s work appealed to me because I had seen firsthand how much money went directly to educating girls in Africa.”

Lisa visited a rural school in Zimbabwe and met 56 girls whose education is being funded by Camfed. She also met two young women who, with Camfed’s support, are studying social sciences at university in order to help their own communities. Every one of them said that without Camfed, they would not have been educated. “None of these girls had ever seen a book of traditional African stories, and they all begged me for a copy,” says Lisa. “I know that there are hundreds more girls across Africa who will benefit if the book sells.”

Camfed would like to thank Lisa enormously for her generosity, and to urge supporters to buy this wonderful and evocative book.

Stories Gogo Told Me is available at WHSmith.

Listen to an interview with Lisa Grainger on BBC Radio 4

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When the writer Lisa Grainger was growing up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), she loved nothing better than listening to the tales told by her nanny, Ida, round the fire. Twenty years later, she gave up a full-time job as the Features Director of Elle to return to her native Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries to gather stories that have been passed down by generations of grandmas (or “gogos”). (more…)

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