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 3000 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, 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.

Donate-a-book, is a unique crowd-funding platform for children’s books. The platform helps to bridge the gap between individuals who want to help children read and those organizations, schools and individuals who need books for children.

At Pratham Books, we are shaping a new, innovative approach to multilingual publishing because we believe that every child needs good books to read in a language of their choice.

Job Description

Pratham Books is looking for a dynamic person to lead its marketing and communications activities for all its initiatives. The landscape is wide, varied and creative. It would range from creating campaigns to tickle the imagination of writers, illustrators or translators to designing collateral for events; from creating newsletters to promoting a new series of books. You would need to create marketing communications strategies for different stakeholders, support internal teams, manage media relations, and oversee all brand related activities. It goes without saying that you’ll be good with words and ideas.

Key Responsibilities

Develop and present the communication activities memorably and create a strong brand presence for Pratham Books

• Plan and execute marketing campaigns

• Create CRM programs    

• Support on ground events like book fairs and literature festivals with marketing collateral and on ground activation

• Develop and maintain media relations

• Use digital marketing tools to increase awareness and traffic to websites    

• Measure and report performance of marketing campaigns

• Participate in award challenges

Qualifications

A degree in Business/Marketing

• Minimum of 3-4 years experience in     Advertising / Marketing Communications

• All-round knowledge of different aspects of communication – Advertising, PR, Digital Marketing, CRM programs    

• Good communication, presentation and interpersonal skills

• A self-starter and motivated team player    

• Good technology skills

Nice to have but not mandatory: Experience in working with nonprofits.    

Location: 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 Marcom Manager in the subject line to  [email protected]

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Nandita Jayaraj is a science writer and storyteller based in Bengaluru. She co-founded 'The Life of Science' project where she travelled to laboratories around India tracking the lives and research of the scientists who work in them. She has written Arya in the Cockpit and Raju's First Flight for us and took these stories to two classrooms in Mangalore. Read on to find out what her experiences were.

When a friend invited me to Mangalore to read out my first ever children’s book - published on Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver platform - I said yes without thinking twice. After all, I’d grown up reading to my little brother and now my nephew and each story I write or edit is accompanied by many sessions of reading out aloud to myself, so how different could it be in a classroom? It was only a day or two prior to the event, when I actually begun to envision the scenario that awaited me, that I started to get somewhat concerned - maybe I wasn’t as prepared for this as I’d thought.

There were two storytelling sessions I’d agreed to do - one was at Early Learning Centre, a Montessori school run by Sonia and Vijay Moras in Mangalore, and the other one was at St. Peter Higher Primary School, a nearby government school which ELC supports. To my humongous relief, the day went very satisfactorily. Both sets of kids were in that early part of childhood when they are easily enthralled and young enough that I didn’t feel self-conscious about clowning around. ELC did a fantastic thing by printing out copies for all the children so they could look at pictures and take the story home with them.

As well as the day went, I couldn’t help but go back home feeling thoughtful and a little guilty about all the preconceived notions I had been harbouring about the way children react to stories. While writing and editing children’s stories, I have always tended to base my instincts on the experiences I’ve had reading out to the children in my family. The Mangalore experiences definitely taught me a thing or two and I know I this will impact the way I deal with children’s content in the future.

What I read out to the kids was actually a pair of stories (which will eventually be two parts of the same book) - Arya in the Cockpit and Raju’s First Flight. I had written these for StoryWeaver under the theme of women who “fly”. The former follows the life of Arya as her dream to take to the skies evolves as she grows up. The latter works sort of as a primer to the second- it features Arya’s younger brother who is looking forward to take his first ever aeroplane ride on his way to meet his sister after a period of separation. This story ends with a twist - as it is revealed that his sister is the pilot of the very plane he is about to travel on.

This is where I learned my first lesson - what I fancied to be a clever twist that makes for a great story needn’t work for children with the same dramatic effect as I’d imagined. It works for children reading the book themselves, but in a classroom setting with younger kids who are being told the story, a realised I had to go a step further - be a bit more explicit, more grandiose - as it was, the text was too subtle.

These kinds of improvisations are what make a great storyteller, and I was humbled by the realisation that I was far from one. Nevertheless, I was able to catch on to this just early enough in the reading to add in some elements and ensure that the kids understood what was going on. The sister wasn’t just waiting for Raju at the end of his flight, she was in the flight, flying the plane! I may not have gotten the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ I was going for, but they were amused enough - phew!

The second big lesson I learned was the presumptuousness with which I assumed a story written in English will be enjoyed just as much by non-speakers of the language. The government school was a Kannada medium one, but I was told that the students would be in in 2nd and 3rd grade and so would have a basic understanding of English. Nevertheless, ELC had organised for one of their teachers, Jayashree Guruprasad, to read out the Kannada translation (by Brinda N Rao) after I was done reading the English one.

While the classroom was being set up I tried to break the ice with the kids and quickly realised that their level of English was nowhere near my understanding of ‘basic’. I suggested to Jayashree that she translate side-by-side instead of at the end and that made a big difference. The children were able to appreciate the flow of the story much better - if I had dumped that entire load of English on them, they would surely have been lost and bored, just as I would have if someone read out a whole story to me in Kannada (which I would argue I have a somewhat basic understanding of). The books given to these kids were the Kannada version. Even though it worked out, I came out with an enhanced appreciation for short sentences. There was also an opinion that the translation was somewhat too literal and the language ‘can be more colloquial, the way we speak’. I promised to pass on the feedback to Pratham Books.

My final lesson was the stark differences in lifestyles between the two groups of kids. At both venues, I started off the storytelling with talking about aeroplanes in general. These conversations with the kids before commencing the book really helped me gauge the audience. As expected, at the government school, none of the children had ever been in or even seen a plane up close - though they all were very excited by the prospect of travelling in one some day. They seemed unfamiliar with terms such as ‘cockpit’ and ‘airhostess’, so when I told the story, I avoided some words.

At the Montessori school, a majority of the crowd had been inside an aeroplane and were much more knowledgeable about aspects of flying that I would most definitely not have known in their age. Quite a few were familiar with concepts like the cockpit, the retractable wheels of an aircraft, etc., and many were enamoured by possibilities like the plane crashing (this came up an alarming number of times during the reading)!

There was so much to take away from the storytelling experience and I definitely think producers of children’s content - especially ones starting out - have a LOT to gain by reading in different types of classrooms to see for themselves whether what we think works is actually working. Even if to a certain extent I knew of these good practices and my editors at StoryWeaver have emphasised it to me repeatedly, it only really hit me when I saw the proof in front of my eyes. And as a complete storytelling newbie I can confirm that this is not as scary as it sounds and if you make an effort, chances are the young kids will love you anyway.

(Photos by Girish.)

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Duration - 6 months extendable up to 1 year 

About Us 
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. StoryWeaver (www.storyweaver.org.in)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 Project Manager based out of Chhattisgarh who can spearhead a statewide campaign. The person is responsible to successfully implement the campaign and deliver on the KPIs while managing internal and external stakeholders. 
An ideal candidate should have proven experience in campaign and project management. 

Key Responsibilities: 
As a Project Manager, you will manage the day-to-day communication and operational aspects of the project. Your core responsibilities will be to: 
● Create and maintain detailed timelines/work plans for all project deliverables and key milestones; hold internal and external teams accountable to project plans. 
● Serve as the primary point of contact for all operational questions about the project internally and externally 
● Establish and nurture government relationships in the state education department to further the campaign outreach and impact 
● Design and deliver campaign outreach initiatives in the state and ensure mobilization of resources at the ground level 
● Identify stakeholders and attendees for crucial recurring and ad-hoc discussions; capture meeting notes and escalate communications to align on deliverables and troubleshoot roadblocks. 
● Deliver project status updates to internal and external teams 
● Undertake ad-hoc translation requests for short messages and social media posts. 
● Support in preparing project launch, weekly check-ins, to identify and capture recommendations for future execution.
● Working closely with other team members to capture feedback throughout the project lifecycle and to contribute to the iteration of existing processes aimed at making project delivery more effective. 
● Support the organization in monitoring and evaluation exercises 
● Gathering and summarizing key takeaways for monthly project reports 

Required skills and experiences: 
● Minimum 2 years of experience in the education sector, project management or social media outreach campaigns 
● Bachelors / Masters degree with relevant experience will be considered for the role 
● Proven experience in project management, social campaigns, digital marketing campaigns and/ or project management preferably in the education sector 
● Exceptional communication and project-management / organisational skills 
● Proven ability to build consensus and work effectively within a cross-departmental team 
● Excellent track record of time management, systems organization, and follow-up

● Agility and flexibility towards evolving responsibilities and last-minute project changes 
● A confident facilitator to coordinate discussions between multiple internal stakeholders (such as an interdisciplinary team of different specialists across different geographies) 

Language Skills: 
Excellent proficiency in reading, writing and speaking Hindi. Additional knowledge of local languages of the state is desirable 

Nice to have but not mandatory: 
● Past experience in the education sector. 
● Masters degree with past work experience in social sector organising and advocacy. 
● Experience running lean campaigns that emphasize scaling of success, ideally within the education/social sector 
● Willingness to travel around the state if required 

Location: Raipur 

Write to us: 
Email your resume with the Project Manager (Chhattisgarh) -StoryWeaver in the subject line to [email protected]. Also, send us a short paragraph on why you think you are suitable for the position.
 

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