Theresia Alit is a freelance translator, who translates books from English-Javanese to Bahasa Indonesia-Javanese and vice versa. She is passionate about creating a repository of storybooks in her mother tongue, Basa Jawa, as she feels that the number of people who tell children's stories in Basa Jawa is decreasing. Previously, she has worked on translating stories into Javanese for a project called Serat Kancil. As part of the Freedom To Read 2020 campaign, she has created a digital library of 50 storybooks in Basa Jawa. 

In this email interview, Theresia writes about translating books into her mother tongue and the importance of creating children's books in the Basa Jawa.

Do tell us about yourself, your interests, your work.

My name is Theresia Alit, and I am from Indonesia. I am a freelance translator, and I work on translations from English-Javanese to Bahasa Indonesia-Javanese and vice versa. Speaking of interests, I am very interested in traditional culture, languages and people.

We would love to learn about your personal relationship with Basa Jawa - do tell us about it.

I am a native speaker of Basa Jawa, and was raised speaking the language. I find it sad that a lot of people in the younger generation of today do not really speak or understand Basa Jawa, despite it being their mother tongue.

How did you come across StoryWeaver and the Freedom to Read campaign?

I came to know about StoryWeaver and your Freedom to Read campaign on Twitter, from a retweet by the Wikitongues account.

Why do you think is it important to have children’s books in Basa Jawa?

I feel that it is extremely important for the younger generation to learn and read Basa Jawa. In fact, yesterday, I did a campaign with a community of small children, and they were really enthusiastic about reading stories in the language!

Theresia Alit conducts reading sessions for children in Basa Jawa in Indonesia

Of the 50 storybooks that you translated, which story would be your favourite and why?

I really enjoyed the book, Bayi gajah kang penasaran. It's so funny!

What are some of your favourite books from childhood? Is there any memorable reading moment that you would like to share?

Some of my favourite books are The Little Prince, Asterix and Obelix, Uthak-uthak Ugel (folktale), etc. When I read a book, I feel that I am moving into another world altogether. (just like Puchku!)

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You can read all of Theresia Alit's translated storybooks here.

Do join the conversation by leaving your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach out to us through our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Pratham Books (www.prathambooks.org) is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India. As a publisher serving every child in India, Pratham Books has always pushed the boundaries when it comes to exploring innovative ways in which to create access to joyful stories and have been fortunate in finding partners to collaborate with who share this vision.

In 2015, Pratham Books' increased its footprint by going digital. As an industry leader, we were one of the first publishers in the country to open license our content. All this content is now available on StoryWeaver, which is a digital platform that hosts stories in languages from India and beyond, so that every child can have an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. All stories on the platform are openly licensed.

We are looking for a Content Manager for the StoryWeaver team.

 

Illustration by Mohith Mohan from Building a Building, written by Kavitha Punniyamurthi, published by Pratham Books

We are looking for a dynamic individual for the position of Content Manager - StoryWeaver. A self-motivated individual with experience and skills in curating content from multiple sources, forging strategic partnerships and anchoring the process of migrating content to the platform. The person will lead a team and be responsible for timely execution to expand the content available on the platform to serve the needs of children globally. The role will report to the Director - StoryWeaver and will work closely with different internal and external stakeholders. This is a full time position based out of Bengaluru.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the strategic planning, development, and management of content on StoryWeaver

• Curation of Content

  • Continual development of new, innovative ideas to curate the content on the platform 

  • Curate content based on requirements of organisations and partners so as to ensure users access quality content

• Licensing and Sourcing Content

  • Create partnership opportunities with other publishers to open license their content on the platform

  • Work closely with the content team for sourcing children's storybooks under open licences from across the globe

  • Create, implement and showcase the best practices around open licensing of content through easily replicable frameworks

• Orienting to Curriculum 

  • Liaison with educational and governmental partners and teachers on curating content based on curriculum and structured frameworks. 

  • Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders and subject matter experts to create and source curriculum based content. 

• Hygiene and Maintenance

  • Liaison with collaborators and  internal and external stakeholder to ensure that high quality standards are met for crowd-sourced content - including review processes and red flagging of inappropriate content

  • Work closely with operations and studio teams to ensure processes and work-flows are created and well implemented

  • Work closely with the editorial, research and marketing teams on promotions and campaigns and to deliver the project goals

• Other Tasks 

  • To take on other tasks or responsibilities, as required for the project  

  • Archiving and documentation 

Required Skills

1. Post graduate in Literature / Education / Journalism with 6-8 years of experience in related fields. Experience with digital platforms is favourable

2. Experience in curriculum development or classroom experience

3. The candidate must have hands-on experience in review, proofreading and production related processes.

4. Exceptional communication skills     

5. Highly organized and detail oriented

6. A proven track record to manage, lead and deliver large-scale operations

7. Proven ability to build consensus and work effectively within a cross-departmental team         

Nice to have but not mandatory

1. Experience working with non-profits     

2. 1-2 years working in a partner-facing role     

3. Indic language and digital publishing experience

Location: 

This is a full-time position in our Bangalore office.

Compensation:

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience

Write to us:

Email your resume with ‘Content Manager - StoryWeaver’ in the subject line to [email protected]

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 Zarif Hussain, is a first year student at the Symbiosis Law School, Noida. As part of his course he is  doing an internship with Servants of the People’s Society that runs Balwadis for very young children from underserved communities across Delhi-NCR. Read on to find out how Zarif used StoryWeaver in his sessions with the children.

I was asked me to take interactive sessions with the children at Trilokpuri Balwadi and I currently conduct one-hour sessions everyday with the little kids on different topics like GK, math and health education. The children love to listen to the stories and they ask me bring a new story almost every day for them.

At first finding stories for them was a difficult so I asked my mom to help me out. She recommended Pratham Books’ Storyweaver platform where she translates stories to Surjapuri for children and uses them extensively in education centers in Kishanganj, Bihar.

I checked the StoryWeaver platform and found that it was simple and beautifully done with stories across reading levels in multiple languages. I downloaded stories from StoryWeaver and the first story I narrated was “Fat King, Thin Dog” in Hindi. During the session I realised that StoryWeaver was just what I needed. The children loved the story and did a drawing of the Mota Raja. One of the children Faizan recited the story back to the class. In fact, when I did a recap of the story after few days they all remembered the story so well.

The next story we did was “Bunty aur Babli” which was about washing hands with soap with an emphasis on personal hygiene. The children learnt to wash their hands before eating food and after using toilet.

The most impressive thing I found about the stories on StoryWeaver was that they all had large, colorful pictures. The easy-to-use interface made it simple to download stories. I prepared activities for each story I narrated and that helped me retain the interest of the young children in class. Listening to the stories is the most enjoyable part of their day!

The stories on StoryWeaver are a great tool for teaching children. Thank you for making my sessions interactive and fun-filled with the children!

If you are using StoryWeaver in your classroom, library or after-school centre and would like to share your story on our blog write to [email protected]

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