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 storybooks 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 openly license our content. All this content is now available on StoryWeaver, which is a digital platform that hosts books in languages from India and beyond, so that every child can have an endless stream of storybooks in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The platform contains easy-to-use tools to read online and offline, create and translate books. All the books on the platform are openly licensed.

We are looking for a Social Media Manager for StoryWeaver

The role involves developing and implementing strategic engagement initiatives by building and sustaining relationships with multiple stakeholders, and advocating the brand across a variety of social networks.

Illustration by Sayan Mukherjee, for Catch a Ride on Raindrops written by Anjali Vaidya, published by Pratham Books.

Key Responsibilities:

Responsible for all social media handles for StoryWeaver, engaging with and growing our audiences, and contributing towards building StoryWeaver’s brand and visibility. This includes:

• Managing the social media content calendar

• Implementing and Creating campaign promotion and documentation videos

• Implementing paid digital marketing initiatives

• Distributing the brand’s content across a variety of different social networks, and the StoryWeaver Blog.  

• Documenting the use cases of a diverse group of stakeholders from non-profits, community groups, authors, illustrators, publishers, children, parents, etc.

• Using Analytics and other measurement tools to provide reports on metrics, and continually find ways to improve on those metrics through testing and new initiatives.

Required skills

• 3-4 years of experience in social media management

• Familiar with the latest technology, trends and analytics in social media

• Project management, ability to work with tight timelines

• Eye for detail

Nice to have but not mandatory:

• Previous experience in Sales/ Marketing/ Public Relations

• Video skills

Location: 

This is a full-time position and is based out of Bangalore

Compensation: 

Salary will be commensurate with qualification and experience.

Write to us:

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

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Vineetha from the Partnerships Team talks about StoryWeaver’s collaboration with the Kerala government’s initiative, KITE, (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) to take our books to more teachers, classrooms, and students through their digital initiatives.

It’s a bright, sultry day in May at Cotton Hill high school in Trivandrum where an ICT training session for 150 primary school teachers is underway. Cotton Hill school is one among the 500 such locations across the state where teachers are currently being trained by the KITE,a Kerala government initiative, on the latest ICT innovations for the classroom. Over the last 3 weeks, the academic team at KITE has been conducting large scale trainings for nearly 90000 teachers  at nearly 500 locations across the state part of ICT capacity building initiatives.

 

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) is a Govt of Kerala establishment set up to foster, promote and implement modernisation of state run and aided educational institutions in Kerala.

As part of the Hi-Tech school project that works with over 9000 primary schools, it is conducting a large scale training for government school teachers. The objective of this training is to train teachers on the latest tools and platforms and basic ICT tools such as  open source software for documentation and processing, spreadsheets, audio recordings,and more.

 

And here’s where StoryWeaver fits in.

StoryWeaver, is now one of the tech platforms that primary teachers in Kerala will be trained on annually.

Our collaboration with KITE is very special to us, thanks in no small part to their commitment to the open source philosophy. In fact, KITE was recently in the news for its massive success with the use of open source software in Kerala government schools. After our initial meetings with the KITE team, and our shared commitment to ensuring open access, we couldn’t wait to get this collaboration off the ground. It began with the annual training that StoryWeaver was integrated into. The academic team at KITE explored the platform and further trained master trainers who took the programme out to the field and the 90000 primary teachers across the state.

At the training in Cotton Hill school, we met Sadhana M and Anthony Raj, two government school teachers and masters trainers for KITE who are leading the training on StoryWeaver. Cotton Hill school is one of the 12 centres in Trivandrum where this training is being conducted.

When asked about the common struggles they face as language teachers, Sadhana who has been teaching in government schools for over 20 years, says “The level of the books is either too high or too low. It’s always a challenge to find something that’s just right for our students.”

When  asked what the children liked to read, they added that in most schools in Kerala, children are exposed to mainly English and Malayalam books, in addition to some Hindi books. Anthony Raj, who teaches English,adds “Children are only going to learn to write and communicate better when they can read. Children need to read more to develop vocabulary in any language. So, reading is not something we can afford to ignore in classrooms.”

 

 

The teachers and trainers at the centre echo the role that technology plays in education in today’s day and age. They mentioned how all teachers are invested in their professional journeys, where tech plays a huge role today. They add that considering how comfortable children are with technology, it’s time for teachers to catch up, and platforms like StoryWeaver are a great way for teachers to integrate technology in the classroom.

For us in the StoryWeaver  team, workshops and trainings are a great way for us to interact with and learn from the educators on the ground. The KITE workshop was no different.

We saw the trainers using Ammachi's Amazing Machines to highlight how stories could be used to teach Science, while another trainer showed how Busy Ants could be used to introduce vocabulary and grammar in early grade classrooms. The Readalong stories a big hit with the trainers and teachers alike, who agreed that AV stories are always a great way to engage students’ attention and build listening and reading skills. We would like to thank the KITE team for letting us be a part of their work, and are committed to supporting this collaboration to work with more teachers and children across Kerala.

We came back from this workshop with a lot of ideas and suggestions, and of course, renewed commitment to put ‘a book in every child’s hand’. With partners like KITE, we know we’re a step closer to this vision.

 

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This position has now been filled.

Pratham Books 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.

In 13 years, we have published over 3,000 books and distributed over 14 million copies of our storybooks and 16 million story cards. Last year, 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, our digital platform that hosts stories in 60 languages. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free.

We are looking for an Art Director

Today, Pratham Books creates books suited to both print and digital mediums in multiple languages. We are looking for an Art Director to help us create visually appealing picture books with a strong understanding of how each of these mediums work.

As an Art Director, you will be responsible for the design and production of books created for both print and digital. As most of our titles are migrated to StoryWeaver, we are looking for someone who is tech-savvy and eager to find ways of minimising loss between print and digital book design. This will require you to work closely with our editorial team and external content creators we collaborate with (illustrators, consultant art directors). The candidate needs to have excellent graphic design skills and experience in print production.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage a team of graphic designers to ensure that the book design is completed within agreed timelines
• Work with freelance illustrators and consultant art directors to create visually-appealing books keeping in mind print and digital requirements
• Find innovative ways of reducing losses when a book is adapted from print to digital, or vice versa
• Ensure highest quality of print books
• Work closely with the editorial team to create stories with rich, diverse and nuanced visual narratives
• Bring in expertise of typography, keeping in mind multilingual content

Required skills

• 6-8 years of experience in Graphic Design
• Strong understanding of print production
• Strong communication skills
• Expertise in Photoshop, InDesign
• Ability to multi-task
• Be a team player

Nice to have but not mandatory:

• An interest in illustration and book publishing
• Knowledge of children’s books

Location: The position is based out of Bangalore

Salary: Will commensurate with experience. We are looking for a passionate individual who wants to be part of a team that is creating a new model in multilingual publishing to address the scarcity of books for children in need.

Write to us: Email your resume with Art Director in the subject line to careers(at)prathambooks(dot)org

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