The Soma Experience: Storybooks by and for children

Posted by Shaoni Dasgupta on March 03, 2021

Post by Demere Kitunga, Chief Executive Officer, Readership for Learning and Development—Soma

Founded in 2008 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Soma Book Café is a readership promotion space and innovative co-creation hub for literary expression and multimedia storytelling approaches. It provides different arenas for literary expression and discourse; promotes reading for pleasure and encourages independent pursuit of knowledge. Soma, which means read or learn in Kiswahili, is an apt name for an organization that actively encourages both.

Soma believes strongly in the creative ability of children. It runs a Saturday morning programme called Watoto na Vitabu (Kiswahili for children and/with books). In 2019 with assistance from Neil Butcher & Associates, Soma began a pilot project—the Kalamu Ndogo (little scribes) book series to undertake a research and writing process with children on a pilot basis to generate insights and data on early literacy content creation with and for children. Children wrote, illustrated, and selected the stories they liked best.  

Three groups of children from different backgrounds took part in the project—a cohort from the Watoto na Vitabu Saturday programme and two classes from after-school centres in Dar es Salaam. The four children whose stories were selected worked with published authors, illustrators, designers, and other book professionals to turn their ideas and words into a professional product in print and online.

All of the children participated in workshops and brainstormed on story-writing and creativity. They were encouraged to share experiences by talking about their lives and to stretch their imaginations. We used all kinds of prompts—children’s books, including comic books; cuttings from magazines; sketches from a fully illustrated children’s book; and a number of objects like a ball, board games, and objects in the natural environment like twigs or leaves.

"We discovered some children were good illustrators and storytellers; others were good observers. The children were improving their skills from one day to the next."  - Patrick Joseph Gongwe, HK Learning Centre

A picture containing person, child, child, young Description automatically generated

We can see how this process inspired the children’s work. Nakiete Mlaki drew her main character after looking at children’s book illustrations. Larry Semiono’s story, The Poor Lady, was partly influenced by a magazine picture of a helicopter. The children also wrote about their lives—feeling different and not belonging, poverty, or dueling co-wives, for example. These are the four prize winners:

  • The Lonely Frog by Nakiete Mlaka about a young frog who feels alienated from her peers, but who possesses an unappreciated gift that will save the community. The story was written in English and translated into Kiswahili.

  • Chungu cha Ajabu in Kiswahili by Farida Chacha* about two friends, a prince and a commoner, who became ensnared in trouble because of the king’s avarice and bad faith. Farida’s story is influenced by traditional African/Arabic folklore. 

  • The Poor Lady in English by Larry Semiono about an elderly lady who wants to fly and realizes her dream when a wooden stick turns into a flying wooden tray.

  • Mbuguma na Nasiru in Kiswahili, by Sharifa Shemputa about two half-brothers braving a journey into the jungle to fetch medicinal plants to save their ailing (and argumentative) mothers’ lives.

 

The author with Nakiete Mlaki, author of The Lonely Frog

The author with Nakiete Mlaki, author of The Lonely Frog

The project, which was complicated and ambitious, had its ups and downs. A number of mid-course revisions along the way were necessary. But we were able to accomplish many of our objectives, even with the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. We saw that given the right environment, children are as skilled storybook authors as adults are. Kalamu Ndogo was predicated on producing three works in Kiswahili but ended up with four published stories—two in Kiswahili, two in English. 

A case study on this project will be found here at the Soma Book Café website and here at the Early Learning Resource Network website.

Three of the stories can be accessed on StoryWeaver and at Soma Book Café. They carry a CC BY 4.0 licence.

Please send us your comments about our work and the stories.  We welcome sharing and translation!

 
 
Thank you, Demere and Soma! Your work in helping children express themselves through stories is inspiring.
 
You can find the books published by Soma  here.

Unfortunately, Farida’s mother withdrew permission for her daughter to participate in the project and we have not published Farida’s story. Farida Chacha is not her real name

Be the first to comment.

Pratham Books is hiring a Quality Assurance Engineer

Posted by Remya Padmadas on January 15, 2018

THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST.

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 the last 3 years, we have increased our impact by investing deeply in technology based initiatives to further our mission. We are now looking to hire a Quality Assurance Engineer to test and support Story Weaver ensuring the end-to-end quality assurance of the platform.

About the Project

StoryWeaver is a digital platform that hosts children’s stories in multiple Indian and international languages, so that children have access to reading resources in their mother tongues to learn and practice reading. All the stories are available under open licences and not only can they be read for free, they can also be translated or versioned, using simple tools embedded on the platform. In 2 years, StoryWeaver has grown from 800 stories in 24 languages to 6500 stories in 104 languages. We have built a robust global community that uses our content as well as contributed to creating more content on the platform. 

StoryWeaver is being recognized as an emerging innovation that can transform the early literacy reader ecosystem globally. Recently, StoryWeaver was featured in the World Bank's report on 20 innovative EdTech projects from around the world, and was also the recipient of the prestigious Library of Congress Literacy Award 2017 International Prize.  Our vision is for StoryWeaver to be the largest multilingual open library in the world for children by creating a collaborative publishing model that can address the scarcity of reading resources in their mother tongue languages. 

(Image by Thea Nicole de Klerk from the BookDash book 'Springloaded' written by Chenél Ferreira and Sam Wilson, published on StoryWeaver)

 

Job Description

This position will be a member of the Digital Team at StoryWeaver to test and support ensuring the end-to-end quality assurance of the StoryWeaver platform. There will be significant opportunities for communication with Business and Technical teams to further develop, nurture and scale a world-class digital platform that is redefining the way reading resources can be created and distributed globally. In a 2 year time-frame, the project outcomes are expected to scale by 10x and this position will play an important role in helping the organization meet this objective. 

Key Responsibilities

  • Work in close coordination with functional team to articulate and document test cases thoroughly to ensure adequate coverage of requirements.

  • Conduct User Acceptance Testing and Live testing on the Story Weaver platform to identify and report bugs to the Technical Team.

  • Work closely with technical team to track reported bugs to closure in order to regressively maintain the quality of the Story Weaver platform.

  • Provide support for coordinating the User related requests with the Technical team.

Requirements

  •  2-3+ years experience in software quality assurance and manual testing of mobile and web based applications

  • Ability to understand business requirements and articulate test scenarios

  • Must have excellent analytical skills to identify bugs and issues within the software before they occur in real user environment.

  • Good understanding of testing practices for Web applications.

  • Understanding of issues surrounding multiple device and browser compatibility.

  • Experience working in an SCRUM agile environment.

  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English 

  • Effectively interface with the Functional team to understand Business requirements.

  • Effectively interface with the Technical Team to support User related requests, report and track bugs to closure.

Nice to have but not mandatory

  • Experience working with non-profits

  • BE/BTech/MSc/MCA degree in Computer Science or related disciplines will be a plus

Location

Position is based out of Bangalore and is full-time. Project is expected to complete within a 2 year time-frame.

Salary

Compensation will be commensurate with experience. 

Write to us: Email your resume with 'Quality Assurance Engineer:' in the subject line to [email protected]

 


 

Be the first to comment.

Pratham Books is looking for a Graphic Designer (Digital)

Posted by Remya Padmadas on October 03, 2017

*** THIS ROLE 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 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.

Pratham Books is looking for a Graphic Designer to join our digital team. This is a full-time position based in Bangalore.

The candidate will be responsible for

  • Designing picture books for print.

  • Adapting original design files (in print), and converting it into sizes and designs that are suitable for StoryWeaver - Pratham Books’ digital story platform.

  • Working closely with our Content Team to create and adapt content for digital and print mediums.

  • Working closely with the production team for the first print run of the books.

 

Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's books publisher. Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly-licensed, multilingual children’s stories.

 

Required skills:

  • Expertise in InDesign Creative Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw

  • Basic graphic design skills and an interest in book layouts

  • Basic understanding of the printing process (digital and offset)

  • Minimum one to three years of relevant experience

  • Ability to work quickly and accurately on design files

  • Be a team player, quick learner

  • Good communication skills

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Please send your resume to [email protected] with ‘Graphic Designer - Digital' in the subject line of the email.



 

comments (2)