A group of South African mothers have been frustrated by a lack of children's books in local languages. They have taken matters into their own hands. The country has 11 official languages, so Ethni-Kids created an online store that sells books written by South Africans, telling South African stories. CGTN's Yolisa Njamela has more.

It started off as a passion project for the group of five mothers and friends. They were tired of hunting down diverse literature in bookstores and libraries. And thus, Ethni-Kids was born.

PRECIOUS MDLALOSE CO-FOUNDER, ETHNI-KIDS "Our mission is about representation. There's power in books and experiences that you have from reading a book and we thought how powerful is it, even more to be able to see yourself in the book and to identify with the characters that you see. We wanted to make that diversity available to our children. We want our child to read a book that says "hurry up Lebo" and her name is Lebo and she sees that Lebo looks like her, has the same hair texture as her."

The founders want to foster a diverse society starting with children.

PRECIOUS MDLALOSE CO-FOUNDER, ETHNI-KIDS "It brings together children of all sorts of backgrounds that speak all sorts of languages and it's a special moment when you see children of all colors embracing each other's languages."

The books they offer are written in all South Africa's 11 official languages. They now also host six children writers.

PRECIOUS MDLALOSE CO-FOUNDER, ETHNI-KIDS "We realized that we need to entertain the kids in a different way. We need to make books fun again; we need to make books exciting so we started library readings. There, every last Saturday of the month, we have a local author come through, read books, sign the books, interact with the children and just make the reading experience fun again for children."

YOLISA NJAMELA JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA "Ethni-Kids has grown in a relatively short space of time. This encouraged the founders to transform Ethni-Kids into an online book-store. The founders have now also partnered with Ethnic hair salons."

KHUMO TAPFUMANEYI CO-FOUNDER, ETHNI-KIDS "The idea is to treat your child's mind at the same time while you're treating their crown of treating their hair so it's just about embracing yourself, loving yourself and passing on those values to our children."

Ethin-Kids is a welcome concept for many.

NTHABI SIBANDA FOUNDER, PUO PUBLISHING "For those of us who've been in the game for a while, this is what was missing. To say, let's come together as a community, as a market of writers, publishers who are really trying to put books out there that has positive messages for our young children."

The founders are intent on reaching as many children as they possibly can. Yolisa Njamela, CGTN, Johannesburg, South Africa.