The most important contributors to the Story Project were the storytellers themselves. They were men and women from every region of Ethiopia and from many walks of life. They included farmers, teachers, midwives, a nun, priests, merchants, old soldiers, school children and many others. Their names, and the names of those who translated their words into Amharic, are recorded region by region, along with the names of the Regional Cultural and Educational Officers who facilitated the collection of the stories. Unreserved apologies are due to any persons not duly acknowledged.  The stories were translated from Amharic into English by Michael Ambatchew, Mikhail Negusse, and Mesfin Habtemariam.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Education had oversight of the Story Collecting Project as a whole and gave it full-hearted support. The British Council in Ethiopia under Michael Sargent (Director 1992-1998) responded enthusiastically to Elizabeth Laird's original project proposal, and also gave it maximum support.

 This website has been generously funded by the Christensen Foundation, under the guidance of Wolde Gossa Tadesse, who supplied not only the necessary finance, but moral support and encouragement, which was much appreciated.

Special thanks are due to the following:

Elizabeth Laird, director, editor and writer of the stories
Michael Sargent, director and editor
Yosef Kebede and Eric Robson who created the artwork
Elizabeth Laird, Jacek Opienski and Dr Ann Rossiter, who wrote the exercises
Yannis and Miriam Mendez Lovelace who produced the recordings
Gareth Cromie, Anton Oliinyk and Anna Sidyakina who designed and set up the website
The staff at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, London, especially  Julia Eccleshare and Farrah Serroukh

A note on copyright:

These stories are the property of the Ethiopian people, and no one has the right to copyright them. They can be retold by anyone in their own words in any way, in print, on air or online. However, these versions of the stories are the copyright of Elizabeth Laird and her authorship must be acknowledged. They can be downloaded and distributed freely by anyone for educational purposes, but cannot be reprinted for commercial sale or reproduced on another website without the author's permission,  or attributed to anyone else. 

The artwork was created by Yosef Kebede and Eric Robson. Their work cannot be copied and used without acknowledgement and without the artists' permission outside the purpose of this website.

The exercises are the copyright of Elizabeth Laird, Jacek Opienski and Ann Rossiter.