Suganya, from the Partnerships team, takes us on a journey to Tumkur where India Literacy Project is implementing a Multi-Dimensional Learning Spaces program with the government schools.

Getting there

The two-hour ride to Tumkur through traffic and on roads under-construction had taken a toll on our energy levels. But meeting children filled with enthusiasm for the read-aloud instantly put a smile back on our faces.

We were greeted by Latha, an India Literacy Project (ILP) Facilitator. She has been instrumental in implementing StoryWeaver content as a part of their Multi Dimensional Learning Space (MDLS) programme. Over 16 facilitators who work across 30 schools in Tumkur, Karnataka, identify schools in need, coordinate with partner organisations and develop a programme to help children not only with academics but also overall personality development. They provide schools with digital infrastructure, reading material and teacher guides, and also help them implement the programme in the classroom.

Story reading

Children were excited to get started with the read-aloud session. They  had picked Smile Please for this. One of the children volunteered to read the story, and the others joined in. Whenever she had difficulty with a sentence or the pronunciation of a word, the class teacher and the ILP facilitator chipped in to help her out.

We were awed by the children’s enthusiasm and decided to do an impromptu reading session for them. One of our team members stepped in and interacted with the children in Kannada, doing another reading. It was way past the children’s lunch time, but they wanted their fill of stories first.

While the students were getting ready to enjoy their mid-day meal, we bid goodbye and continued our journey to visit more children.

More stories…

Once we reached the next school, we met with the headmaster and the ILP facilitator, Tejaswini. Teachers there have found it easier to introduce science and mathematics concepts using our STEM books. Children operate the computer and the projector during their free time to read stories on their own.

Without further ado, we began another read-aloud session with the children. This time, children had decided on Welcome to the Forest. Children enjoyed the narrative and also gained insights about the forest and animals that call it home. We asked the children, “What is your favourite book and which story do you enjoy reading aloud in class?”. We were happy to hear varied responses, but Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani! turned out to be everyone’s favorite.

We were glad to see the children read and relate to the characters portrayed in our books. We believe that an incredible future awaits the children. With partners like ILP, we get that much closer to making our vision a reality.

 

 

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Manning Sutton is the founder and director of Apprendre Sans Frontieres (Learning Without Borders), a non-profit organisation that provides technology and educational materials to primary schools in French-speaking African countries like Senegal. To supplement the course curriculum, the organisation provide books (in the form of PDFs and creative commons), websites (Wikipedia, Khan Academy etc.), photos and videos to teachers. 

The organisation currently has about 200 books for primary school students. However, low literacy rates, no internet access and the absence of library materials including children's books are some of the challenges that the organisation faces. To create storybooks in mother tongue languages like French, Learning Without Borders partnered with StoryWeaver.

Jordan Hairabedian, who works as a researcher at Learning Without Borders, is a student at Sciences Po Aix, an Institute of Political Sciences in France. In May 2019, he organised a week-long translation hackathon with fellow students at the university to translate storybooks into French for Learning Without Borders.

This was Learning Without Borders’ first experience organising a StoryWeaver translation sprint. A closed Facebook group was formed to aid communication regarding translation and review of each story. Jordan translated StoryWeaver's translation sprint guide, which provided the best practices on translating for children, to French. 

Jordan shares, “The stories translated were published after peer-to-peer reviews. This was followed by each story being rated by the language/ translation experts from within the group. These ratings were made the basis of assessment and awards for best translations from the sprint.”

53 stories were translated into French in this sprint. You can browse through some of the stories from the sprint here.

    

Julia Hang and Jordan Hairbedian translating stories into French as part of the hackathon organised by Learning Without Borders.

Learning Without Borders has piloted an offline, solar-powered digital library in Senegal, that can be used in the remote areas of the country that do not have access to electricity or the internet.

Sutton hopes to see story books translated from French to languages like Pulaar and Serer, and eventually to Mandinka, Balanta-Ganja, Mandjak, Hassaniya Arabic, Noon, Jola-Fonyi, Soninke, and Mankanya. He also plans to share the StoryWeaver methodology with the Ministry of Education to see if books can be created locally, in local languages. 

As for us, we’re just excited that our translation resources are being used to translate storybooks into languages around the world, so that more children can benefit from it and partake of the joy of reading!

If you would like to conduct a StoryWeaver translation sprint, please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].

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Every year, StoryWeaver marks International Mother Language Day (IMLD) to remind us all that learning to read in one’s mother tongue early in school makes education more engaging, meaningful and enjoyable for children. 

Suzanne Singh, Chairperson, Pratham Books, says: ​“Children love stories and they are an ​important​ ​part​ ​of​ ​a​ ​child’s growth​ ​and​ ​development. Children need storybooks that they can relate to and that are in languages that they speak and understand. Through StoryWeaver,  we are trying to address the inequity in the availability of reading resources by providing open and free access to over 18,000 storybooks in 224 languages and fostering the respect for cultural and linguistic diversity.” 

International Mother Language Day 2022

In 2020, we're ringing in International Mother Language Day by helping volunteers conduct more than 1000 reading sessions for children in over 60 languages! This week, volunteers from around the world are using StoryWeaver’s digital repository of multilingual storybooks to read to children in several languages, including mainstream Indian languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu), indigenous languages (Kuvi, Pawari, Santali), vulnerable languages (Gondi, Korku), classical languages (Sanskrit) and other languages from around the world (Arabic, Igbo, Nepali). 

30,000 schools in the state of Chhattisgarh, India (of which 15,000 are in tribal areas) have been encouraged to celebrate International Mother Language Day with StoryWeaver by giving children access to books and storytelling in indigenous languages like Gondi, Kurukh, Sadri and many more. Says Dr. M. Sudhish, Samagra Shiksha Chhattisgarh: “On January 26, the Honorable Chief Minister of Chattisgarh announced the use of mother tongue languages while teaching in classrooms. When we heard about StoryWeaver’s IMLD initiative, we felt that this was a great opportunity to take the Chief Minister’s mandate forward and bring mother tongue storytelling into the classroom.”

Additionally, we're also thrilled to announce the launch of open digital libraries in 16 underserved languages, marking the culmination of our Freedom to Read 2020 campaign, which aimed to create digital books in languages that have limited or no children’s books. Through our campaign, over 500 storybooks have been translated into languages such as Amharic (Ethiopia), Basa Jawa (Indonesia), Bodo, Tangkhul (vulnerable languages from North-East India), Kolami (vulnerable indigenous language from Maharashtra), Kochila Tharu and Rana Tharu (spoken in Nepal), Sindhi, and bilingual books in English-Surjapuri, to name a few.

International Mother Language Day 2022 | Theme

"Using technology for multilingual learning: Challenges and opportunities" is the focus of the 2022 International Mother Language Day, which highlights the potential of technology to enhance multilingual education and encourage the development of high-quality teaching and learning for all.

Some of the biggest problems in education today may be solved by technology. If it is governed by the fundamental concepts of inclusion and equality, efforts to ensure fair and inclusive lifetime opportunities to learn for everyone can be expedited. A crucial part of inclusion in education is mother tongue-based multilingual education.

Many nations used technology-based solutions during the COVID-19 school shut down to ensure that learning continued. However, a lot of students lacked the tools, internet access, resources, content, and human support they would have needed to pursue remote learning. Furthermore, the diversity of languages is not always reflected in the tools, programmes, and content of distant learning and teaching.

International Mother Language Day At StoryWeaver

These libraries have been co-created in collaboration with our partner organisations:

• Aripana Foundation
• Azad India Foundation
• Karunodaya Foundation
• Pragyam Foundation
• Ras Abebe Aregay Library
• Nepal Rana Tharu Samaj 
• Institute for Multilingual Education (IMLi)

And our Language Champions:

• Amina Bouiali 
• Bharti Menghani 
• Dron Sahu
• Kaleab Getachew
• Marzieh Nezakat
• Minket Lepcha
• Nazanin Karimimakhsous
• Sanjib Chaudhary
• Themreichon Leisan
• Theresia Alit

A huge shout-out to our Freedom to Read partner organisations, Language Champions, and IMLD reading volunteers! Your efforts will go a long way in helping put a book in every child's hand. THANK YOU! 

Stay tuned for more stories from the IMLD reading sessions and our Freedom to Read partners!

In the meanwhile, here are some happy moments  from our ongoing International Mother Language Day celebrations:

From a reading session in English-Surjapuri conducted by Azad India Foundation in Kishanganj, Bihar

From a reading session in Arabic conducted at the Qatar National Library

From a reading session in Kolami, conducted at DIET Yavatmal to mark the launch of an open digital library of 100 Kolami storybooks, created by Institute for Multilingual Education (IMLi) and StoryWeaver

From a reading session in Maithili conducted by Aripana Foundation at Gyan Niketan Public School, Darbhanga, Bihar

From a reading session in Amharic, by Ras Abebe Aregay Library in Ethiopia

From a reading session in Karbi, conducted by Pragyam Foundation at Parijat Academy, Guwahati, Assam

From a reading session in Marwari conducted by SNS Foundation, Rajasthan

From a Nepali reading session conducted by Nepali Rana Tharu Samaj

From a reading session conducted in Mayurbhanj, Odisha

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