Post written in collaboration with the team at the Nature Conservation Foundation

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On 21 May, Endangered Species Day, StoryWeaver, in association with the Nature Conservation Foundation, is proud to present a new book for children on the most elusive cat in the world: the snow leopard. 

Our Encounter With a Snow Leopard is based on a real-life story written by writer Lobzang Le, who grew up in a remote village in Ladakh. One day when she takes her family’s livestock for grazing, she and her little brother come face to face with the elusive mountain cat - the snow leopard. 
In this blogpost, we speak to Lobzang, the author, and Tanushree Roy Paul, the artist who brought the story  to life.

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Conversation with Sherab Lobzang, the author

Sherab Lobzang grew up in Kumdok village in eastern Ladakh. It is a remote hamlet in Rong valley, approximately 110 km away from Leh. She did her Masters in Political Science from Jammu University. Since  her childhood, she was attracted to wildlife owing to her agro-pastoral family. She joined the Nature Conservation Foundation in November 2016. She looks after education related activities in the landscape and fieldwork. Lobzang enjoys her work as she believes wildlife conservation is essential for the communities.

Tell us about why you chose to write about the mountains and the snow leopard? What has been your inspiration behind the same?

I like the trans-Himalayan landscape and I love to explore these regions during my fieldwork. This is the reason I choose to write about it. My childhood experience connects a lot with my present work in conservation, which inspired me to write this story. 

My friends in my team helped me and motivated me to write this story. Special thanks to Munib, Ajay and Dorjay because they motivated me to write this. The idea of having this story in StoryWeaver was suggested by my colleague Shweta and Jignasa who work with the communications team of NCF

What is the message that you hope to share through these stories?

I just want children to be aware and be amazed by a landscape that lies on the fringe of India. Not many people know about the way of life of the people of Ladakh.

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Conversation with the illustrator, Tanushree Roy Paul

Tanushree Roy Paul is a Masters of Design graduate in Animation and Visual Studies from IDC, IIT Bombay. As a young artist, she created Illustrations for poetry of social protests and revolution and worked on sequential stories. She continued her visual arts journey by serving as an illustrator, graphic storyteller, photographer and animator to clients like Eklavya Publications, Resha by Medhavini, Farzidarzi, Ekamkaaya, Leafbird Foundation, TBS planet and Pratilipi, to name a few. She had served as an avid academician for the past 4 years guiding the young creatives in the field of Animation and Design and is currently administering her multifaceted art and design studio: The Kairos Pictures.

What did you like most about doing artwork for this book?

I believe I am one of those foot soldiers whose work had been mostly on and about documenting through visual tools, the biodiversity, ecosystems, the life around us in general. Being an academician, it has always been on my radar to educate the young thinkers and creators on environmental issues. Hence, it was obvious for me to work on this book.

What is special about drawing snow leopards?

What wowed me about this project was an opportunity to highlight an endangered majestic being and the book being a part of its conservation drive. Personally, I got a chance to know about the hardships of life at an altitude where these Phantoms of the Himalayas survive and thrive. In simple terms, the research process while developing the book had been thrilling.

How connected are you with nature? Were you able to draw inspiration from your connection with nature into the book?

According to my observation, I have witnessed artists or creative folks in general have a propensity to love, admire, adapt and work towards the conservation of the environment, our nature. I have had an intense inclination towards our environment since my childhood, and believe that being an artist is a by-product of that inclination.

I certainly got an opportunity to out-pour what I stored for a few years now since my several visits to different regions of Himalaya, this is the first story that I am illustrating related to the Himalayan ecosystem.

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Read Our Encounter With a Snow Leopard - written by Lobzang Le, illustrated by Tanushree Roy Paul, and published by the Nature Conservation Foundation - for free on StoryWeaver. 

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-This position is now closed-

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.6

We are looking for a Project Manager for StoryWeaver

Illustration by Kabini Amin from BDum Dum-a-Dum Biryani! by Gayathri Tirthapura

This position will work closely with the StoryWeaver Product team to support the operations of StoryWeaver.  The role would involve project co-ordination, anchoring product enhancements, nurturing on ground relationships and support reporting and documentation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work closely with the internal teams to implement StoryWeaver’s operational plans
• Project level support and coordination across various teams to ensure timely completion of project deliverables
• Track and monitor user trends and usage data to drive future product enhancements
• Anchor product enhancements through user research, requirement analysis, design and communication briefs to tech implementation
• Support the core team in reporting, documentation, campaign processes
• Drive on ground testing beds for key features and partner engagement

Required skills

• Proven experience as a Project manager 
• Excellent organization skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English
• Sophisticated ICT skills
• Willing to travel to all project locations
• 2-4 years of experience

Nice to have but not mandatory:

• Experience working with non-profits
• Masters in Business Administration, Marketing or a related field would be a plus

Location: 

This is a full-time position for 1 year and is based out of Bangalore

Compensation: 

Salary will be commensurate with qualification and experience.

Write to us:

Email your resume with ‘Project Manager - StoryWeaver’ in the subject line to [email protected]

 

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UPDATE: This position has been closed. Thank you for your interest!

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 and launching StoryWeaver. StoryWeaver (www.storyweaver.org.in) aims at enabling book security at scale, by pioneering a new, inclusive approach to book creation and distribution. StoryWeaver provides open access to multilingual storybooks that can be read online, offline or downloaded & printed for non-digital environments. Easy-to-use tools enable further translation & versioning, so that the books can be customized for local requirements. In just 5 years, StoryWeaver has grown from providing 800 storybooks in 24 languages to 34,000 books in 297 languages. 

StoryWeaver is being recognized as an emerging innovation that can transform the early literacy reader ecosystem globally. Very early on, StoryWeaver was featured in the World Bank's report on 20 innovative EdTech projects from around the world, and more recently was the recipient of the prestigious Library of Congress Literacy Award 2017 International Prize.

We are looking for a Senior Project Manager: StoryWeaver

This position will work closely with the senior leadership to manage all projects related to the platform and shape the strategic direction of StoryWeaver.  There will be significant opportunities for innovation, working closely with internal and external stakeholders 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 light of the NEP (2020) which accords highest priority to achieving universal Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by 2025, StoryWeaver has been working on several Foundational Literacy Programmes. This position will play a critical role in all aspects of design and delivery of these programmes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work closely with the internal teams to design strategies to implement StoryWeaver’s strategic and operational plans
• Align processes and resource-planning with overall strategy
• Develop plans to materialize strategy and analyze strategic partnership opportunities
• Track and monitor user trends and usage data to develop insights that will drive future product enhancements 
• Monitor and analyze industry trends and market changes
• End to end ownership of all deliverables in the product lifecycle. Design, implementation, user testing and data tracking. Develop product collaterals including product explainers, protocols, dashboards, case-studies, user training modules and advocacy communication
• Project manage key programme design and implementation 
• Ensure effective usage of the new foundational literacy programmes by collecting data on learning, teaching and user-satisfaction metrics
• Work closely with senior leadership on grant proposals 

Required skills

• Masters in Business Administration, Marketing or a related field
• Minimum 6-8 years of experience
• Proven experience as a Strategic Planner or Business Consultant
• Understanding of market research and data analysis
• Knowledge of business operations and procedures
• Demonstrable project management abilities
• Analytical mind with problem-solving attitude
• Excellent organization skills 
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English 
• Sophisticated ICT skills 

Nice to have but not mandatory:

• Experience working with non-profits
• BTech/MSc/MCA degree in Computer Science or related disciplines will be a plus

 Location: This is a full-time position based out of Bangalore

Compensation: Salary will be commensurate with qualification and experience.

Write to us: Email your resume with 'Senior Project Manager - StoryWeaver' in the subject line to [email protected]

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