Pratham Books is conducting a workshop in Delhi to get educators and librarians familiar with StoryWeaver. The session will include a demo of the platform and also have dedicated work time for participants to try their hands on StoryWeaver.

If you are :

• a librarian looking to curate stories
• a teacher in search of interesting ways to introduce concepts to your students
• a Reading Champion
• someone passionate about children's storybooks in Indian languages     

... please sign up!

Please note: Registration is compulsory and we have a few seats left, so hurry up and register here. Confirmed participants for the workshop will receive a confirmation email from us by 2.00 p.m Tuesday, 17th May. Preference will be given to participants working in underserved communities.

Workshop details

Date: 18th May, Wednesday

Time : 9.30 a.m to 2.00 p.m (lunch will be arranged)

Venue: Preet Vihar, Delhi. More details will be emailed to shortlisted participants

Registration link : http://goo.gl/forms/5cN7qNhrXD

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Team StoryWeaver was in Kolkata in June for our second Translation Hackathon (you can read all about our first one here). 15 volunteer participants, a healthy mix of teachers and language students, came together to version more than 40 stories in Bangla over one weekend. The goal of the hackathon was to facilitate not only the translation of level 1 and 2 book to Bangla, but to also ensure peer led reviews of the translations.

We reached out to Sudeshna Moitra, a language teacher with over 34 years to help us not only find and bring together enthusiastic participants, but to also facilitate the workshop and mentor the volunteers. Sudeshna Ma’am has written 'Banan Tanan' a tome used by many Bengali writers. She writes for a number of Bengali blogs, and is also the editor of Sahajpath. As a resource person in Alamin Mission she organises training workshops for teacher on language teaching.

Sudeshna Ma’am believes that “Translation of stories helps to transmit thoughts into other languages, breaking the barrier of geographical distance, religion, and culture.”

The hackathon opened with a warm introduction and Sudeshna Ma’am set the agenda for the two day hackathon. Participants were familiarized with the Pratham Books mission and the power of open licenses. Rajesh Khar, Pratham Books Editor, spoke about the nuances of translating for children, levelled readers and also exposed them to the best practices followed by our team of Language Editors. Rajesh ensured that the participants - language students and teachers working with the children from underserved communities - had much clarity to the end goal of weaving quality books that were freely accessible for the last child.

Sudeshna Moitra sets the agenda for the workshop.

“We had curated a list of stories that we wanted to see translated through the workshop. These were level 1 and 2 stories published by Pratham Books, BookDash, ASP and the StoryWeaver community. We assigned the stories to each participant before the workshop keeping in mind their particular strengths. They were asked to read each story a few times to familiarise themselves with the story and it’s nuances. But the idea was for also for them to tap into the collective learnings and energy of the group to weave their translations.” shared Amna Singh, Associate Language Editor, Pratham Books.

Participants busy translating

One of the participants, Suman Das, a Head Master Of Chalitatali Prathamik Vidyalaya of Nadia said that once the clock started ticking the participants gathered speed and completed half their allotted books before lunch. Once they had translated the stories Sudeshna Ma’am reviewed each and every story with some receiving a green signal to publish. After lunch, a discussion on the need for level appropriate words in translation was had. “Some of us, including myself used some words which weren't appropriate for the age group the stories were intended for.” shared the Head Master.

Discussions and healthy debates

Peer -to-peer review of translations

Mentoring and feedback

The next day, peer led review of stories lead to new words being included, some that were more soothing to the ear.

The hackathon was a lively space for discussion and debate: how to make translations child-friendly, keeping the words level-appropriate, importing cultural references (or not) while translating a story. This lead us to understand that a handy glossary of examples demonstrating Pratham Books’ editorial stance on translation for the last child would be helpful at our next hackathon.

It was also wonderful to see participants use robust local language keyboards which we documented to see if we could integrate the libraries into StoryWeaver.

“The workshop has provided a platform among teachers, students and translators to translate great stories in vernacular; now more children will access these stories.” Sudeshna Ma’am shared at the end of the workshop.

Participants left with plans to take StoryWeaver to their respective schools and we have already heard back from Subimal Pramanik, Assistant Primary Teacher of Swarupnagar North 24 pargonas about this.

“I have already started a new class where there is reading and learning with StoryWeaver. Students enjoyed the trial session very much and I have decided to continue with the sessions.” 

We’re also very excited about a the StoryWeaver workshop that Suman Das will be conducting for 17 primary teachers from 12 schools in the Nadia district on 5th August.

Everything just came together so well over the weekend – the hunger for good stories, the energy of the language students, the wisdom of the teachers, their shared passion for Bangla. We can’t wait for our next hackathon!

You can read all the stories translated at the hackathon here. 

Bhalo thakun!

comments (2)

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September 30th is celebrated around the world as International Translation Day. We're very fortunate that some of our wonderful translators and language reviewers shared their thoughts on translation with us on this occasion.

Madhu B. Joshi prefers to be known as a communication practitioner. She sees a great need for demystification in daily life and has been trying to work towards it. She has taught translation and a short, self-designed course of Indian Culture; mentored content teams of major education NGOs and designed educational audio-video programmes for CIET, NCERT. Joshi is a translator of Hindi poetry and short fiction in English and has presented major black feminist writers in Hindi. She is also a prolific and visionary collaborator of StoryWeaver. All of this, and we also know and love the other मधु बी. जोशी (in her own words)... जो खाना पकाना, इलाज करना, पौधे और कुत्ते पालना, राय देना.. जैसे बहुत से मुफ़्त काम करती हैं। उन्हें सब से ज़्यादा मज़ा बच्चों के लिए काम करने में आता है और वह इसका कोई मौका नहीं चूकतीं।

My interest in translation is the result of two socio-political accidents. A very courageous father and a supportive family allowed me to turn crisis into opportunities; I shudder at the thought of my contemporaries who suffered what I did.

I was in school in Delhi. Teaching science in Hindi in Government run schools was high on the agenda of the government at that time. In 1969, when I needed to choose the medium of instruction as a science student, coming from the hardcore Hindi-Hindustani following family, I chose Hindi over English. I had been educated in Hindi Medium government schools, most of my English came from my father, an ex-Royal Navy man in rough circumstances he had never expected to be in.

In earnest I (and hundreds of thousands other Delhi students) began to study science subjects in Hindi. The catch was, except for about three volumes of Biology books published by the NCERT, there were few CBSE syllabus compatible science textbooks available in Hindi. I remember our maths, chemistry and physics teachers who had studied in UP and Madhya Pradesh recommending some books that were compatible with the Intermediate/Secondary Board syllabi of those states; we supplemented that list with available books in English. As a result, we ended up reading in English and writing our answers in Hindi.

I had a good command of written and spoken English and Hindi, still my grades fell. I passed my Higher Secondary exam with not exactly flying colours. But I had unwittingly acquired translation skills and a deep respect for, and interest in facilitating communication.

Years earlier, seeing my interest in singing, my closet music-lover father sent me to the neighbourhood aunties who taught music and dance to about a dozen Bengali girls. The aunties were shocked to see a Garhwali girl wishing to be their student. In that gormint clony of Dilli, whoever had heard of a Garhwali girl wishing to sing? They refused point blank, “we only teach Bengali girls.” That was the end of my music dream. In school, the dumbest of children chose music and art as subjects. There was no other music education available in the vicinity. I followed the only course available to me - AIR was giving so much music for free, I learnt my music from Manna Dey, Mohammad Rafi, Malika Pukhraj, Begum Akhtar, Asa Singh Mastana, Salil Chowdhury, Madanmohan......

Much later I guessed the good aunties had not been able to communicate that they only taught Raubeendro Shaungeet which no one else in our colony showed the least interest in. I am sure they would have taught me just as well as they taught the rest of their students had they only known I wished to learn music irrespective of the brand.

These two incidents made sure I did a certain amount of translation besides other things.

 

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