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 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 open 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 books can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. 

 

Our Programmes:

StoryWeaver has created the following educator focused digital interventions:

Reading Programme - RP offers 144 beautifully illustrated multilingual age-appropriate storybooks that provide a rich reading experience to all children.

Foundation Literacy Programme - The FLP program consists of 90 storybooks in Hindi and Marathi across 6 reading levels for Grades 1 to 3. 

STEM -Literacy Programme - Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver has created a comprehensive STEM literacy program for Grades 1 to 5 in five languages.

 

We are looking for an Associate Partnerships Manager for Maharashtra to join our Partnerships Team. 

 

Scope of Work/ Duties:

As Associate Partnerships Manager, Maharashtra, your core responsibilities with Pratham Books StoryWeaver will include the following: 

 

 Partnerships & Project Management

• Partnerships building with State Education Departments, Ed Tech Companies, NGOs and CBOs in the state of Chhattisgarh, in addition to other states 

• Identifying and bringing on board new Marathi language partners for STEM, FLP and Reading Programme

• Identify partnerships for platform (content and features) adoption at scale 

• Serve as the primary point of contact for all operational questions about the project internally and externally 

• Create and maintain detailed timelines/work plans for all project deliverables and key milestones

• Deliver project status updates to internal team and stakeholders

• Support in preparing project launch, weekly check-ins, to identify and capture recommendations for future execution

• Prepare monthly project reports, an end project report on best practices, challenges, case stories etc. 

 

Capacity Building

• Facilitate the planning of capacity building / training of various stakeholders in the program

• Support organising and completion of capacity building for stakeholders 

• Support the team to prepare lesson plans and editable collaterals 

 

Impact Documentation and Monitoring & Evaluation

• Support in implementing the monitoring and evaluation of project operating within Reading Programme, FLP and STEM programmes, developing and maintaining the MIS of the project/s

• Support the research agency to complete the baseline and endline evaluations and providing them with necessary support from the district functionaries 

• Submit monthly reports on the programme implementation, reflecting achievements made, challenges and solutions for donor agency, and other key stakeholders 

• Documenting project successes and learnings in the form of case studies, video stories and short films 

 

Eligibility:

• Post Graduate degree in Social Work/Sociology/Education/Management or any other relevant discipline

• Minimum 5 years of relevant work experience of working with Government Education Departments

• Dynamic person with good communication skills and zeal to learn

• Should be fluent in writing and reading in English and Marathi

• Should be able to work on word, PowerPoint and excel sheets

• Should be able to write reports and minutes of meetings

• Should be willing to travel within Maharashtra as the job requires extensive travel within the State

 

Reporting: 

The Associate Partnerships Manager, Maharashtra will be directly reporting to the Senior Manager - Partnerships 

Duration of the engagement: 

1 year (starting from September 20th, 2022)

Location: 

Pune

Compensation: 

Compensation offered will be commensurate with the qualifications and experiences of the candidate

 

How to Apply:

Interested candidates can email their detailed CV by the 15th of October, 2022 to [email protected]. In the subject line, candidates must specify ‘Associate Partnerships Manager, Maharashtra’. 

 

*Please note that only shortlisted candidates shall be notified by us. 

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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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Vinayak Varma, writes and draws things. He has written, guest edited and art directed STEM picture books for Pratham Books. Visit him at www.instagram.com/mixtape.in

Give nine people the exact same brief, and there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with nine different kinds of output. I’ve always been curious to know what happens on that journey between idea and execution, and what makes similar stories live out such different lives in the minds of different artists and writers. This is perhaps the only thing that motivates me to collaborate with others, speaking as a cranky hermit type who prefers working alone.

I write and illustrate for a living (a large part of which has lately been in aid of PB StoryWeaver). Every new project I take on is invariably a triathlon event that begins with a plunge into the Bottomless Pool of Procrastination, followed by a deathly plod across the Minefield of Migraines and a bicycle race through the No-Man’s-Land of Forgotten Deadlines. Somewhere along this crazy path, the odd conceptual tangents that inform the best parts of my work tend to sneak up on me like little ninjas. I'm usually too annoyed or preoccupied while I’m working to make note of precisely how any of it happened, and once the moment has passed and the job is done -- provided that job has any depth, truth or beauty to it -- it's easy enough to shrug and pretend like I'd been hit by some Joycean haiku moment.

But mastery of one’s art comes from understanding the mechanics of these creative accidents. If you can unpack it, you can duplicate it. However, the trouble with writing stories or making art is that they require you to exist in an isolated, meditative bubble where you're engaging deeply with the problem at hand, whereas the route to this bubble is through much distraction and muddled thinking. In order to parse the finer workings of this process, you need to be able to slip outside of your bubble at will (while maintaining an accessible distance), catch yourself in the act of being creative, and then be detached enough to pause and document what's happening. It’s a dilemma akin to that of Schrodinger’s cat -- the creative moment exists in a sort of delicate half-alive, half-dead state, where the very act of observing it risks killing it.

Of course, there are other, loftier parts to publishing, from where one can gain an interesting new vantage of some these abstract areas of book-making: hello and welcome to the Highlands, where clowders of editors scour the hillsides for errant adverbs like goats looking for tasty trash. These are cold, dry places where many authors and illustrators don’t dare venture for fear of losing their precious senses of self. Well, I do go there every so often, because I’m foolhardy like that. Here’s what I discovered up there: nothing returns your inner moggie to its quantum state like stage-managing the creation of picture books (as opposed to being one of the actors out in front). Editing and art directing let you view and gently influence the many moving parts of a project, watching creativity in action, without the blinding pressure of being the primary authorial voice. You get to observe the zombie cat but, also, you ARE the zombie cat. I recommend this exercise to all writers and illustrators at least once in their careers: not only does it let you see how other people make things, thereby enriching your own work, but it also acquaints you with the terrible power and omnipotence that commissioning editors have to live with daily. This can build empathy, if nothing else.

I got my most recent taste of this awesome power last year when I was hired to commission a set of nine STEM picture books for Pratham Books' StoryWeaver. I planned, ideated, edited and art directed four of these, which were on science. I got to art direct another four, from editor Bijal Vachharajani’s set of environment-themed stories. And I wrote and illustrated the ninth, themed on emotional intelligence, which meant that I too got to make, even as I guided and observed others in the act of making. In sum, I got to pull back the curtain and see all the wheels turn at once, to catch the decaying particle as it sped towards the poison vial, to expose the regular dude masquerading as… as…. a wizard… no, a dead cat… no, a living cat… no, a mountain goat... Look, the point is: this scarecrow has a fresh, insight-filled brain now. Chew on that, zombies.

I’m going to try and share some of that insight (or at least a bit more about the merits to following my particular path to such insight) in part 2 of this post, next week. Meanwhile, let’s look at some of the books that I just mentioned:

The Science Books

For the set of science books that I had to both edit and art direct, I was asked to come up with a few interesting themes and story ideas, and, once they'd been approved in-house, to farm them out to freelance writers and illustrators who were best suited to each idea. Four stories were then shortlisted from the seven or eight ideas that I suggested to my commissioning editors at Pratham Books (yes, even commissioning editors like me have commissioning editors, who in turn have other, bigger, older commissioning editors, who answer to still larger, greyer commissioning editors, etcetera, etcetera, all the way down, like the proverbial Jenga-stack of cosmic turtles).

I'm going to show you exactly how rudimentary these four early ideas were, so that you can gasp and grow silent with awe when you see what they ultimately became in the hands of my talented gang of writers and illustrators. Hold onto your seats.

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"Dear Commissioning Space-Turtle #X,

Here are some ideas:

1. A kid has a cold. S/he then gives it to everyone else in his/her class via sneezes and things. Because epidemiology, boss.

2. An old lady heads out with a walking stick and her grandkid in tow. She uses her stick in various fun ways during the walk, pushing, pulling, propping up, etc., thereby demonstrating how simple machines work. Because physics and stuff, boss.

3. On birds devolving into dinosaurs, a la the chickenosaurus conjecture. Cluck, roar, repeat. Because why the hell not.

4. Crocodiles? Reptiles? Rom Whitaker? Because conservation biology, kids.

+ a few more that probably aren't worth going into given space(!)-constraints in this fake-email-within-an-already-interminable-blog-post.

Sincerely,

Commissioning Space-Turtle #Y"

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As you can see, the whole scheme began with a pith of one-liners that bore a 50-50 potential to go either way: to turn into something halfway-decent, or utter trash. What emerged at the end of their gritty evolution into book-hood, though, would you believe it, were these beauties:

Sniffles: in which Sunando C used bold, striking illustrations and crisp storytelling to turn a sad and lonely germ of an idea into a full-blown epidemic of football and high-fives and cool hats and general cuteness (plus, in a more literal sense, a sustained spray of sneezes, sickness and snot, so keep your antiseptic soaps handy). And those colours! Those characters! Those compositions! Those Norman-Jewison-esque split-screens! Killer stuff!

 

Ammachi's Amazing Machines: It’s like that original walking stick idea has been sliced up and Frankensteined by a mad surgical team consisting of Rube Goldberg, Professor Branestawm, Mr. Bean and Sathyan Anthikkad. Here’s what I’m interested in knowing: is there anything Rajiv Eipe can't do? Seriously, is there? I've asked everyone, and no one seems to have the answer. I'm willing to pay good money for this information. (Also: simple-machine barfi, FTW.)

 

Kaakasaurus: Terrifying, scaly, toothy, large, angry, feathery, strange, destructive, and hungry are all adjectives that one could apply to Shalini Srinivasan and Prabha Mallya (but I’m told it would be impolite to do so). Their picture book, however, is all of those words, but also happy, shiny, funny, smart, and crunchy like a hot bajji. There’s a Jurassic Park spin-off script in there somewhere, by the way, and Spielberg (or Robot Shankar) would be well advised to quickly option it while this crow is still a crow.

 

Ghum-Ghum Gharial’s Glorious Adventure: Now here is a story you can lose yourself in; a deeply affecting bildungsroman about the meaning of family, about love, loss and self-actualisation. The story and art by Aparna Kapur and Roshan, respectively, are so rich with truth, heart and lyricism. It ticks all the right literary / artistic boxes, I tell you. What makes this book truly stand apart, though, is that it’s also filled with an incredible polyphony of nose-wart-blasted fart-noises. Beat that, Odysseus!

You should go read these books, and share them with your kids, if you haven’t already. Did I mention that they’re all free? No? Well, they are too. The links are in the book titles (above). This is your cue to leave this page. GO!

Next week, in part 2 of this post: Four more picture books, more monstrously mixed metaphors (and other atrocious alliterations), an angry, angry, angry kid, and the Final Fate of Quantum Limbo Cat!

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