Unnati Institute for Social and Educational Change has been working in the district of Akola Akot and Telhara in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra with children from the Korku tribal community since the last five years. They work towards the improvement of literacy skills of these children. Since the Korku language does not have a script, the organisation is developing resources using the Devanagari script to ensure that the children learn to read and write Korku. These resources include storybooks, songs, curriculum-related resources and reading material. It runs a programme on ‘Enhancing Language Skills of Children from Tribal Communities’ through education support classes with the objective of facilitating improvement in tribal children’s basic reading and writing with comprehension skills in Korku, their mother tongue and Marathi, which is a medium of instruction in schools. Tribal youth have taken the lead in translating Hindi and Marathi storybooks into Korku as part of this programme and children are excited and happy as they are getting to read stories in their own mother tongue. Sharad Prakash Suryawanshi, Program Manager Unnati ISEC shares the journey of building a Korku digital library.

                      

उन्नती संस्था गेल्या पाच वर्षापसून अकोला जिल्ह्यातील अकोट आणि तेल्हारा या तालुक्यातील कोरकू आदिवासी मुलांना वाचन लेखन यावं, याकरिता काम करीत आहे. कोरकू मुलांना वाचन लेखन यावे, याकरिता संस्था कोरकू भाषेत उपलब्ध नसलेले साहित्य देवनागरी लिपी वापरून विकसित करण्याचे काम करीत आहे, कारण कोरकू भाषेला लिपी नाहीये. त्यात गोष्टींचे पुस्तके, गाणे, वाचनपाठ, शैक्षणिक साहित्य असे निर्मिती करीत आहे.

त्याचच एक भाग म्हणून विविध प्रकाशनाचे गोष्टींचे पुस्तके भाषांतर, रुपांतर करून मुलांना वाचनास उपलब्ध करून देत आहोत. त्यांना त्यांच्या भाषेत पुस्तके मिळाल्याने ते सुद्धा आनंदाने वाचन करतात. हे पाहून खूप समाधान वाटत आहे. हे भाषांतर करण्याचे काम कोरकू आदिवासी युवक-युवती हेच करतात. त्याची प्रक्रिया ही पुढील प्रमाणे सांगता येईल.

टप्पा पहिला - पुस्तकांची निवड : उपलब्ध पुस्तकांपैकी पुस्तकात ग्रामीण भागाचे चित्र, मजकूर, आशय पाहतो. तसेच स्त्री-पुरुष समानता दर्शवणारे, मुलांच्या भावविश्वाला स्पर्श करणारी. अशा पुत्कांची निवड पूर्ण कार्यकर्ते करतात. 

टप्पा दुसरा - भाषांतर : निवडलेले पुस्तकाची प्रिंट काढली जाते, मग तीन कार्यकर्ते एकत्र बसतात, चर्चा करतात, आणि गोष्टीचे भाषांतर  सुरु होते. त्यांना काही शब्द समजत नाही, त्याचा अर्थ समजत नाही, त्यासाठी मग समन्वयकासोबत, शब्दकोश मध्ये पाहून चर्चा केली जाते. त्यानंतर जी गोष्ट भाषांतर केली, त्याची प्रिंट काढली जाते. आणि परत अजून भाषांतर बरोबर झाले का हे पहिले जाते, त्यावर चर्चा करून बदल केले जातात.  

टप्पा तिसरा - रुपांतर : जे पुस्तक भाषांतर केले, ते कार्यकर्ते घरी घेऊन जातात, आणि घरातील वरिष्ठांना, समुदायात लोकांना वाचून दाखवतात, त्यावर त्यांचे मत विचारात घेऊन, नोंद केली जाते. तसेच गावात ज्यांना लिहिता वाचता येतं, त्यांना मराठी आणि कोरकू भाषेतील पुस्तकांच्या प्रिंट वाचण्यास दिल्या जातात, त्यावरून त्यांच्या काही सूचना आल्या तर, त्या नोंदवून घेतल्या जातात. ही प्रक्रिया झाल्यावर, कार्यलयात दुसऱ्या दिवशी तिन्ही कार्यकर्ते परत बसतात, दोन्ही नोंदी पाहून चर्चा करतात, आणि तसे बदल करतो. 

टप्पा चौथा – पुस्तकात सर्व चर्चा करून संकलन केले जाते. त्याच्या मराठी, हिंदी आणि कोरकू भाषेतील पुस्तकाच्या रंगीत प्रिंट काढून किंवा दुकानातून पुस्तक विकत घेऊन, काही पुस्तके मिळत नाहीत, मिळाले तरी पाहिजे तेवढ्या प्रतींमध्ये मिळत नाही. हे पुस्तके मग शिकू आनंदे वर्गातील मुलांना, गावातील मुलांना उन्नती पुस्तक पेटी प्रकल्पांतर्गत वाचनासाठी, गोष्ट सांगण्यासाठी उपलब्ध करून दिले जाते.  

काम करीत असतांनाच्या येणाऱ्या अडचणी:

पुस्तक निवड करण्यात अडचण येते, कारण कोरकू भागातील घटक पुस्तकात असत नाहीत.

काही शब्दांचे अर्थ लवकर समजत नाही, सापडत नाही.

गावात लोकांना विचारून नोंद घेतांना बऱ्याच वेळेस दिवसा लोक उपलब्ध होतात, असे नाही. त्यामुळे रात्री उशिरा पर्यंत किंवा सकाळी एकदम लवकर त्यांच्या वेळा पाहून काम करावे लागते.

गावात शिकलेले लोक त्यात महिला यांचे प्रमाण फार थोड्या प्रमाणात आहे, त्यामुळे रुपांतर करायला मर्यादा येतात. 

तसेच कार्यकर्ते नियमित राहत नाही.

त्यांना भाषांतर, रुपांतर याचे प्रशिक्षण देऊन लगेचच समजत नाही, म्हणून काही दिवस त्यांची समज बनण्यात जातात.

कोरकू भाषा ही दर १० किलो. अंतरावर थोडी बदलते, त्यामुळे एकूण क्षेत्राचा विचार करून रुपांतर करावे लागते. 

कार्यालय हे गावात असल्याने बऱ्याच वेळेस लाईटची अडचण येते.

संगणक कमी असल्याने त्या ठिकाणी मर्यादा येतात.

कार्यकर्त्यांना तांत्रिक माहिती जास्त नसल्याने अडचणी येतात. 

स्तर एकचे एक पुस्तक रुपांतर करायला किमान एक पूर्ण दिवस लागतो. स्तर नुसार कालावधी वाढू शकतो. आणि मनुष्यबळ, तीन कार्यालयातील कार्यकर्ते, आणि गावातील किमान पाच लोक. 

भाषांतर, रुपांतर करणारे युवक युवती :

१. राजकन्या शांतीलाल गवते,  गाव: धोंडा आखर,  तहसील: तेल्हारा,  जि. अकोला, राज्य: महाराष्ट्र 

२.  माया श्रीराम मावस्कर,  गाव: भिली,  तहसील: तेल्हारा,  जि. अकोला,  राज्य:  महाराष्ट्र 

३.  ब्रिजलाल मोतीराम मावस्कर , गाव:  भिली,  तहसील: तेल्हारा, जि. अकोला,  राज्य: महाराष्ट्र 

४.  सुभाष चांदुजी केदार,  गाव: चंदनपुर, तहसील: तेल्हारा, जि. अकोला, राज्य: महाराष्ट्र   

Here's a little  glimpse of the stories Unnati ISEC has translated into Korku on StoryWeaver. Do take a look at all their stories here. 

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Settle down for this long read by Nkem Osuigwe (PHD), director, Human Capacity Development & Training, AfLIA on how the teams of librarians and communities from different parts of the African continent came together to work towards their goal of creating hyperlocal digital libraries for African children in their mother tongue languages. 

The African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) believes that building a strong library sector in Africa is necessary for overall development. Working to increase the literacy rate of Africans has been pinpointed as most essential as it equips one with the skills to learn and gain access to information that leads to individual and community transformation. Literacy is the foundation of all skills for a better life. Most importantly, literacy enables people to play significant roles in the development of their community and country. 

The African Union 2063 Agenda has as its fifth Aspiration, the building of strong cultural identity for Africans. This ties in with another strand of literacy as is pursued by AfLIA. Literacy takes on another hue of great importance when it leads to the building and strengthening of cultural identity for participation in cultural and social activities. This can only be achieved through gaining the ability to learn and communicate in one’s mother tongue. As children grow up all over Africa, the mother tongue is most largely the first language for communication and understanding of concepts. If they read books in local languages they will be familiar with many concepts in the language they are familiar with. This makes it easier when they encounter such or similar concepts in the official language either in schools or when they study independently. Most importantly, when children are given books written in their mother tongue, it assists in creating the perception of reading as a normal process because it is in a language that they speak and understand in everyday interactions. This has great potential of building strong reading culture across Africa.

The high availability of smartphones and the growing internet penetration in Africa has made it imperative for African libraries to offer print books as well as ebooks. There are a few online platforms where libraries can easily access and use ebooks for children in local African languages. When I met Pratham Books’ Story Weaver online, I was curious. The creative commons platform has quite a number of colourfully illustrated and easy to understand children’s books that one can read online and store offline for future uses. The books though mainly written by authors from another continent have knowledge that African children need – building relationships, honesty, forgiveness, respect and love for other human beings, stories about nature (flowers, insects, weather/climate, human body, planets and geography) as well as books that promote arts and craft. The stories on the platform that amaze me most are those that have the capacity to build the curiosity of children about science, inventions, calculations and naturally occurring phenomena. The platform also has stories for children written by Africans. I reached out and StoryWeaver was and is still there for me! 

How we did it

The StoryWeaver Team and I talked about translating the books into local African languages. It is estimated that Africa has between 1,500-2,000 languages. How do we do it? AfLIA got together a group of Master-Trainers. The training was done online. Network interruptions were much that day and our Team was made up of librarians from Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria listening and watching a StoryWeaver language editor from India share her screen! Practice on what we learned was done individually. There was a hiatus. 

The team from StoryWeaver wrote a nice letter to me after a couple of months and asked that AfLIA applies to be part of Story Weaver’s Freedom To Read 2019 campaign with training thrown in. Building the capacity of African librarians to provide 21^st century information services is one of the core thrusts of AfLIA. That was done and we got in! Choosing an indigenous language from Africa was difficult. Also, AfLIA always strives to create a balance between the regions of the continent in whatever it does. However, we needed librarians from the different regions to commit to translate the books. Eventually we settled for Ewe, Fante, Hausa, Igbo, Isixhosa, Kikuyu, Luganda, Swahili and Yoruba languages and dialects. Librarians were trained in batches and individually online. Prompts and slides were also shared to guide the translation. 

How we hacked it

The teams are spread across five African Countries – Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. We decided to try the Hackathons so that the Master Trainers can train the others and to ensure that the translations have accurate or near-to-accurate meanings especially with languages that are tonal where one word can mean different things depending on how it is said or other words around it. Also, we noticed that some words do not have direct translations in some of the local languages. Having a Translation Hackathon enabled each language team to crowdsource solutions to such a word. Some decided to translate the word as it is pronounced locally, while some decided on compound names that explain the words. The Hackathon also drew the attention oflibrary users to the fact that new ebooks were coming in for the children.

Let's get them reading

AfLIA has drawn up plans to have a continent-wide reading promotion ‘Read Africa Read’ with the same book titles across the different countries. The translated books will quicken the process as we would be able to choose books from the 100 titles being translated. Individual libraries will use the books for their story hours. A librarian in Kenya National Library Services Millicent Mlanga plans to use the books to bring in the out-of-school children and adults who cannot read in English. She believes that the books will spur this group of people into learning how to read and write. According to her ‘these are new sets of books available with a click…,no budgets, approvals waiting, blah blah as kids thirst for new titles’. Already, the Ghana Library Authority has downloaded a book translated into Ewe in the e-readers in the Library and read it aloud to children on the World Read Aloud Day to children. 

Presently more than 200 books have been translated across the languages. We are still going on with the translations. French speaking West Africa librarians have asked that they be trained so that they can translate in Fulfude, Jula and Wolof. We are working on that. Some teams are slower than others but we will all certainly get to the goal of having digital libraries of children’s books in African local languages! 

Head over to here to read the stories translated from Team AfLIA. 

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written by Anamika Radhakrishnan, Arpit Arora, Pallavi Krishnan

The StoryWeaver team has been attending a number of conferences in the last few months. Here’s a look at the highlights from some of them. 

DataKind Bangalore, DataLearn "Data Matters" (Nov, 2018)
Pratham Books was invited to talk about the advantages of a data-driven approach in developing the StoryWeaver platform and showcase the project with DataKind Bangalore to develop a NLP prototype to auto-tag stories with relevant keywords and themes to enhance content discoverability.

Arpit Arora from StoryWeaver was also a panelist at the event talking about the importance of data-driven strategies at social organisations and how other organisations and volunteers emulate this approach.

International Conference on Technology for Education 2018 (Dec, 2018)
Pratham Books was recently part of the International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E 2018) held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. This was the ninth in a series of annual events held with the objective to bring together all colleagues interested in promoting learning and teaching through the use of information and communication technology (ICT). 

Anamika Radhakrishnan from the StoryWeaver team talked about “Leveraging technology, collaboration and open content to address the global book drought for children”. The 20 minute presentation was followed by an extremely interesting Q&A on  how AI can help address many of the challenges faced by the StoryWeaver platform

Microsoft Academic Research Summit, IIT Madras (Jan, 2019)
Purvi Shah, Digital Head, StoryWeaver was was invited by Microsoft Research to talk on the topic of AI for Societal Impact and how StoryWeaver plans to leverage AI to move towards its mission of ‘A book in every child’s hand’. The summit was a forum to foster meaningful discussion and discussion among the Indian Computer Science research community and enable collaborations to advance the state of the art and raise the bar on research efforts. The theme for this years summit was Data Science and AI.

This comes shortly after the commencement of our partnership with Microsoft Research to develop Parallel Corpuses for improving the efficacy of crowd sourced Indic language translations.

AXLE 2019 (Jan 2019)
Pratham Books was invited to be part of a panel discussion at AXLE 2019 held by Microsoft Academia Accelerator at Bengaluru. The panel discussion titled Building and Using Technology for Underserved Languages included discussions around how English is currently the aspirational language. Anamika Radhakrishnan from the StoryWeaver team says “It was extremely gratifying to know that preserving our mother tongue languages is given a high priority across sectors including the mainstream technology companies such as Microsoft”

Bodh: EdTech roundtable for social impact: Tata Communications (Feb, 2019)
Under the aegis of Kreeda aur Shiksha, a Tata Communications - VVMVP Initiative, BODH: A Roundtable on EdTech for Social Impact was held in Bengaluru. The idea of the BODH roundtable is to create a space for informed conversations on EdTech and bring together innovators and practitioners who are transforming learning in formal and non-formal spaces using ICTs and new media. There were over 28 speakers who contributed to the roundtable.

Pratham Books was asked to participate in a panel discussion at the session on Creating Impact Using Digital Media on the topic of Bridging the Gaps with Technology. Pallavi Krishnan from the StoryWeaver team was part of the panel discussion along with Smriti Reha from Anaadi Foundation and Vatsala Shrivastava from Social Alpha and was chaired by Supriya Singh from Tata Communications. The session focused on how practices from diverse fields have successfully channelized the potential of digital and new media to create social impact.

 

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