Written by Amna Singh
StoryWeaver believes that every child deserves to have access to joyful reading material in her mother tongue. In November 2018, we opened applications to educators, translators, literacy organisations, and everyone else working with children to promote reading -- in our quest for partners to help build a 100 local language libraries of children’s books in underserved languages by International Mother Language Day on February 21, 2019 .
We were seeking partners with relevance of work and expertise in language and translations, and above all, a shared vision of equity in access for all. We got over 225 applications from all over the globe – each application inspiring us with their exemplar work in the field of literacy and language for the under-represented communities.
Based on our guidelines, relevance of work and a rigorous evaluation, we have selected 16 organisations and 28 individual language champions to partner with us to build these digital local libraries.
Selected Organisations: Target Languages
Azad India Foundation: Surjapuri
BookDash: 11 official South African languages
SNS Foundation: Marwari
CODE- Ethiopia: Amharic, Afaan Oromoo
African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA): Igbo, Hausa, Fante, Ewe, Yoruba, Kikiyu, Luganda and Swahili
Global Forum 4 Literacy: Zulu, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Tswana and Arabic
Suchana Uttor Chandipur Community Society: Santali, Kora, Bilinguals
Aripana Foundation: Maithili
Little Readers' Nook: Tulu, Kutchi, Marwari …
Unnati Institute for Social and Educational Change: Korku
North East Educational Trust: Assamese, Bodo
Brightstart Pre Primary school and Learning Centre : Marwari
Libreo.ph: Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Tausug/Maranao and Ilokano
Darakht-e Danesh Library: Pashto
Every English: Brazilian Portuguese
REHMA: English-Urdu bilinguals
The selected language champions will help build local libraries across 24 languages.
Target Languages: Selected Language Champions:
Amharic: Kaleab
Bambara: Kirsty Paxton
Basa Jawa (Javanese): Maharani Aulia
Bundelkhandi: Ankit Dwivedi, Krishna Murary Upadhyay
Chinyanja: Agnes Nankhoma Singine Nyendwa
Dari: Aisha
Filipino: Kaye
Garhwali: Shweta Rawat
GSB Konkani: Sujith Kamath
Kirundi: Melchiade Ntibazonkiza, Adolphe Ndagijimana
Kui: Shruti
Kumaoni: Somya Budhori , Richa Pathak Pant,
Kuvi/Jatapu: Markose K C
Malay: David Loiuson
Malvani: Rupali Bodekar
Malvi: Omprakash Kshatriya
Ndebele: Ntando Titus Ntaka
Pawari: Amit Dudave
Pashto: Nighat Kamdar
Sanskrit: Meenakshi Sundaram K B, Priya Bhakthan
Serbian: Ana Jovic
Sindhi (Devanagari Script): Bharti
Sindhi (Arabic Script): Zaib-un-Nisa
Vietnamese: Nguyen Dac Thai Hang
Thank you for your initiative, we will get in touch with all selected partners for the next steps.
And a BIG thank you to everyone who applied. StoryWeaver is truly a result of your constant support, and contributions. We will do our best to reach out to you and explore alternate ways to collaborate. Thank you, again, and happy holidays!