First Issue of Bleu/Blanc

The 32 page inaugural issue of Bleu/Blanc, the children's magazine that Kizito and I founded in 1996, featured "Honor for Mothers." There was a story about boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, a lesson on the importance of "thank-you," a French lesson, and an article "How to be First in Class." The natural history section was on chimpanzees and the bonobo, an ape found only in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Bleu/Blanc was named for the colors of the school uniform -- a mandatory white shirt and blue trousers for boys and a white blouse and blue skirt for girls. The mission of the magazine was to teach literacy while providing educational messages on many different topics.

The politics of the time were so tenuous and the possibility of success so limited that Kizito and I printed the first issue anonymously. For the cover, we could not afford a four color process so Kizito separated them laboriously by hand on sheets of acetone. The results were less than good, but already better than anything students were used to.

We printed only 10,000 copies of the first Bleu/Blanc, for distribution through the schools. There were few takers, and we ended up giving most of them away. But there was a hook that was hard to resist; due to the numbered copies (right lower corner) we were able to give away prizes in a Tombola. There was also prizes given out based on correct answers to a quiz that students mailed in. These goodies created a desire to own something (something to read) that had not existed before in the school culture.