Who Am I?
History
I was born, raised and educated in South Africa. I am a Certified High School teacher in South Africa.
I came to America for my Masters degree in School Counseling. I am Certified School Counselor in Georgia.
I am a mother, an educator, author, musician, herbalist (I invented a tea product for milk intolerant people) and an inventor.
I have a Patent on one of my inventions.
Family
Family is important to me. This is my family when they were young.
I birthed four children and adopted two boys when my beautiful sister died from cancer at 31 years old.
She was an elementary school teacher. These children have been a blessing in my life and I thank God for them.
I have 14 grandchildren, 10 boys and 4 girls.
I was born, raised and educated in South Africa.
I am from the Zulu tribe, Shaka Zulu tribe.
My mom and dad sent me to parochial schools for my middle and high school education in private boarding schools.
I came to America to attend graduate school for my Masters degree in School Counseling.
I am a Certified High School teacher in South Africa.
I have a School Counseling Certification with the State of Georgia (S-6).
I have a specialist degree, Ed.S in School Counseling.
The reason why I started writing children's books is that when my children were young, I did not want them reading any garbage, therefore I used to sit down and choose what they are going to read.
I saw all these books published with no didactic connotation, it set me on a quest to do something about it.
One day I observed ants in my office going back and forth touching each other as they were passing by.
That sparked an interest in me, I told my friend that there is some kind of communication going on and I want to find out what is going on.
I told one of my children to go to the library and check out all the books about ants.
When I read them, I became very interested in ants.
I asked God to give me a book about ants that will tie with my job as a school counselor.
He is faithful, about six months later, I received my book and it is called "Ants At Work: A Child's Introduction To Careers."
I self published it with Outskirts Press, it was important for me to preserve my rights because it is copyrighted.
I did my own illustrations. I have since written a lot of books.
I was very excited to learn about Amazon. I have been working on it and it is a blessing to do this all by myself without going through the publisher and to pay all that money to publish.
Amazon allowed me to be my own boss and to make my own illustrations. This is a blessing and I am so thrilled by it, https://www.amazon.com/author/ameliagaguharris
I have moved on, I am my own publisher.
After years of not receiving a royalty check from Outskirts Press, in 2021 I received a check from them.
Guess how much was it?
.66 cents!!!
I made ip my mind to cut off the middle man. I bought my own ISBN (International Standard Book Number), and I had to copyright it for the second time.
Check out my new publishing company, Amelia Gagu Publishers, under my parent company, Babycarrier Washable Backpack LLC.