Imagine if the language you speak to your friends, think your funniest thoughts in and dream your bravest dreams in, is hardly known in your own country, and might even reach an early death in two decades. To ward off this isolation acutely felt by Kora and Santali, tribal languages spoken in communities across West Bengal and Odisha, Suchana has been working towards their preservation with quiet determination fuelled by their love for literacy and a zeal for preserving adivasi languages.

Suchana, a 10 year old community group, works in Birbhum, W. Bengal towards the education of pre-school to class 10 children from Santal and Kora adivasi communities. Suchana knows that when education knocks at your door, it must come in a language that you understand. Entering a school room can be daunting for a child from an adivasi background as she or he is expected to know a state-language that they or their family have never learnt, or have been denied access to. Our education system is missing out on a huge cultural opportunity here by not being inclusive of more languages, and thus not reaching out to children who need education the most. This tragedy of education not benefitting children who are trying to break centuries-old shackles of being looked down upon as an adivasi is profound.

This is where Suchana steps in to ensure ‘Right to Education’. They have made it their mission to make sure that Kora and Santali are looked upon as legitimate, literacy-inducing languages, and that ‘adivasi school going kids’ can just be school going kids. They aim to sustain cultural identities and promote literacy among the tribal and underprivileged communities through their education programs. As far as they know, they are the first organization to have created children’s books, or in fact any books at all, in Kora.

One of their key educational initiatives, Mobile Library, was started in 2011 with children of 6 villages. Today, the library travels in two vehicles, covers 25 villages and has 1135 members. It consists of books that are written in multiple languages, especially in the tribal languages (Kora and Santali) that children can relate to and learn in. Children who have never held story books in their hands or understood their importance now have access to joyful reading material that’s related to their education and growth, along with creativity and imagination.

   

Kirsty Milward, Founder of Suchana, says, “In Santali and Kora – and other adivasi languages – there is no children’s literature at all. This is at least partly because until the current generation, most adivasi children did not go to school. Among the (still quite young) mothers of Suchana’s current adivasi students, for example, 80% never went to school at all. So where was the need for children’s books in those languages?”

We are proud of our association with Suchana. The organisation’s teacher-translators have been able to develop supplementary reading materials in Kora and Santali at a much faster and prominent way through StoryWeaver. Currently, 27 Kora books and 19 Santali, both in Bengali script are on StoryWeaver. Suchana has printed 10,000 copies of these books for their mobile library and are exploring loading e-books onto SD cards to disseminate stories on low cost mobile phones.

It’s a huge step for languages that were near obscurity and oblivion, to be suddenly sailing the digital waves and ready to be accessed by the whole world in the form of beautiful stories. Read these stories in Bengali script in the tribal languages of Kora and Santali.

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The result for Pratham Books’ Retell, Remix and Rejoice contest 2017 is finally here! A big thank you to all the participants for taking part, and being super patient with us as the judges read through each of your wonderful stories.

This year, Retell, Remix and Rejoice was in a slightly different avatar as we asked our community to weave level 1 and 2 stories around certain themes. We received 66 entries: 39 in English, 26 in Hindi and 1 Tamil story. This was the most number of Hindi stories we ever received for the contest.

Drum roll please

And now, on to the results! This year, we have 3 winning finalists:

Each finalist will receive a gift hamper of books from Pratham Books and will get one hour with a Pratham Books editor, who will share their editorial feedback on the story. One final story will then be chosen for re-illustration.

Meet the judges

Rajesh Khar is a senior editor at Pratham Books. Through these years, he has not only edited and translated books but also coordinated lit fests like Bookaroo, JLF, Samanvay, New Delhi World Book Fairs and joined hands with organisations like Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, CBSE, NEOR by NCERT and a host of non-profits. He has been supervising books in many Northern & Eastern Indian languages and also have had opportunity to be a part of the Adikahaani Series and the Urdu programme. His interests are music, classical performing arts, casual writing, theater and film making. He loves spending time with children and young people and basically has a lot of fun in whatever he does.

This is what Rajesh had to say about the entries this year: “I enjoyed reading all the stories very much and while reading the thoughts that came into my mind were a mixed lot - sometimes those of pleasure, at times a little sadness. Why sadness? Well, in some of the stories I wished that the authors had sustained that creative energy till the last word. Animal Symphony was a lovely story that highlighted the need to provide children ample opportunities to bond with nature alone.  My Grandma Has a Tail and Toot'ta Tara both displayed out-of-the-box thinking and creativity. Joy, happiness and love together make every childhood memorable and create individual secure little universes. This subconsciously builds the foundations for a happy and healthy future life. I was happily reminded of this while reading A Special Journey.”

Our second judge, Kanchan Banerjee is a Managing Trustee of Akshara Foundation where she develops strategy and designs learning material. She founded Jyoshika, an NGO which works for the enrichments of children's learning in their early years. She enjoys writing for children. Under a UNICEF projects she developed graded readers in Kannada for children in Karnataka and in Hindi for children in Chattisgarh. She had this to say about the entries received this year:  “It was delightful to read a variety of imaginative entries. Truly, writers can fire the creativity of young children and move them to a different space away from moralizing.”

Congratulations to the winners. You’ll be hearing from us shortly about your one on one session with a Pratham Books editor.

Read all the Retell, Remix and Rejoice entries.

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Saturday morning 9 am. In a narrow lane in Banaswadi, Bengaluru. A school. Vibrant, bursting with energy! Hundreds of children, chattering away  in English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu. It's a full house. You can almost smell the excitement in the air. Akkas and Annas have come. New faces with new stories. This was the Storytelling Saturday!

One fine day in March, just before the exams started, we decided to give the tiny-tots a break and let them spend a Saturday listening to stories, thanks to volunteers from Oracle Banaglore. A school that our dear friends at Akshara Foundation do commendable work with, was the chosen destination. We gathered children from standard 4 to 8 and set the ball rolling. Our Pratham Books colleague Shruthi, opened the session by introducing the volunteers, the session and playing a little game with the children to wake them up completely!  Once the entire hall was bubbling with excitement, volunteers from Oracle started with Gayathri Tirthapura and Kabini Amin’s 'Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani' - story about a sibling team, their love for cooking and the power of Maths! The children listened in rapt attention, joining in every now and then to do mental calculations as Basha and Sainabi went about measuring the ingredients.

Once the story finished, we slipped into the activity mode with children dividing themselves in groups and playing a game based on maths and numbers. This was followed up with another lovely tale, 'Up World, Down World' by Padmaparna Ghosh and Sunaina Coelho which took children through the canopy forests and introduced them to its various inhabitants. The session ended with a prize distribution for the winners in the activities and lot of cookies going around.

 

Pranjala P, one of the Oracle Volunteers had this to say about the session-

"Walking into a land of fantasy is always an exciting experience. When you have a room full of enthusiastic kids with you, it is even more fascinating. Such was my experience as I got the opportunity to be a part of the storytelling initiative at the Government Kannada Higher Primary School. One can never match the children’s level of enthusiasm. As all the volunteers from Oracle, introduced themselves to these adorable children, they were more than happy to greet us and often paid us a compliment with 'Nice name!'.

As Bhanu started with our first story, 'Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani', and Pramodh helped with the translations to Kannada, children got into the mood and we were all transported into the world of Basha and Sainabi as they cooked the world's best Biryani. I know I was drooling with the details of the Biryani! Once the story was done, we engaged the kids with mathematical activities related to the story. They were all divided into groups and each of us took on responsibility for one group. Of course, we had all the support from the teachers & staff of the school.

Manini took over the next story, 'Up World, Down World', and the children seemed engrossed in the story and the vivid pictures of the little girl, Fatima and her animal friends.

The children were playful and naughty and adorable throughout. There was no hint of inhibitions as they surrounded us, asked questions & shook hands. The cookies and the toffees were a hit with them. Their joyous spirit was beautifully captured by Pradeep.

I would like to thank all the volunteers who came with family or by themselves and made the event a success. Vivek & Pradeep came with their families, Manini brought her mom along,  Bhanu's son was present, Pramodh and Shashank, Mohammed Saleemuddin, Prathik and Devey came too. I know I speak on behalf of all of us, when I say that we had the most wonderful time and I can't express enough gratitude to Payoshni and her team from Pratham Books, for giving us this opportunity. Finally, we walked away with happiness and memories of those million dollar smiles filling our hearts & brightening up our day!"

By the time the session ended, the sun was beating down on us with all its might but everyone in the school had a smile on their face, a smile that expressed a day well spent! We thank Oracle volunteers for their time and enthusiasm and the Akshara Foundation and Government Kannada Tamil Higher Primary School for opening up their classrooms for the session.

Click here to see more pictures from the session!  

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