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 13 years we have published over 3000 books and printed over 14 million copies and 16 million storycards. 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 licence our content. All this content in now available in digital formats on StoryWeaver, our digital platform that hosts stories in 59 languages. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. With both the print and digital initiatives being scaled, Pratham Books is looking for a Junior Graphic Designer. The job involves book design, page layout, and preparing illustrations for page layout, creating promotional posters, catalogues and other creative products, in English and many other languages.

Key Responsibilities

• Working closely with the design and editorial teams to design and layout new children’s books for print and digital formats. ( The illustrations for the books will be provided)

• Adapting the original print design files, and adapting it into sizes and templates that are suitable for StoryWeaver - Pratham Books’ digital story platform. Strong photoshops skills are required for this    

• Pagination, Artwork, Archiving and Documentation

Required skills:

• Designer with an eye towards details and a strong sense of visualization.

• Graphic design skills and an interest in book layouts

• Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite (Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator) and CorelDraw. Proficient in MS Office and Windows

• Basic understanding of the printing process     

• Minimum of three years of relevant experience

• Ability to work quickly and accurately on design files

• Be a team player, Quick learner

• Good communication skills     

• Capable of working within a team and tight deadlines

• Knowledge of fonts and Unicode fonts will be a plus

Pay: Subject to level of previous experience

Location: Delhi

Interested candidates are requested to send in their resume to [email protected]

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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. We are now looking to expand out Outreach Team to make our impact wider and are on a lookout for a passionate individual based out of our Delhi office.

Image by Sonal Gupta from 'Why Does a Poori Puff Up?' 

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. 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. 

Job Description

We are looking for a Partnerships Manager who can forge strategic partnerships to facilitate the use of StoryWeaver’s digital resources with organizations that have programs which promote reading and learning among children, specifically in the North and East of India.

The Manager will be responsible for strategizing and executing plans to increase the user base of StoryWeaver and also provide the necessary training and support to the partner network and work closely with internal stakeholders

Key Responsibilities

• Identify potential partners and strategize, design and execute plans to onboard them as StoryWeaver users.

• Create and execute robust work plans for achieving monthly, quarterly and annual goals including specific targets.

• Build and nurture networks of partners working in the field of Education/ with Children / Ed-Tech.

• Provide training and support to the partner network.

• Provide information and feedback to the internal team based on partner feedback and essentially be a bridge between the internal and external stakeholders

• Help with research and documentation for impact assessment

• Plan, execute and own book/event specific campaigns, on-ground events and CSR volunteering activities.

• Help build strategy for the function, contribute in new ideas for both the function and platform.

Qualifications

• A Post Graduate Degree preferably in Marketing and Management

• 3 to 5 years work experience in Sales, Marketing, Outreach, Partnerships or related areas.

• Experience in a programmatic function in the development sector (preference for experience in Education)

Competencies

• High level Communications Skills :- Exceptional interpersonal and verbal/written communication skills

• Organisation/Time Management Skills – Planning, working systematically & efficiently and keeping information organized and accessible

• Project management skills – Multi-tasking and prioritising, planning and organizing, perseverance, working with multiple teams that are interdependent, ability to work with timelines and targets.

• Ability to gather data, analyze information, and prepare reports and documents

• Experience in classrooms and/or working with Education Orgs

Good to have

• Ability to network and make connections

• Interest in books, education and publishing.

• Should be open to travel

Location: This role is based out of Delhi and is full-time.

Salary: Compensation will be commensurate with experience.

How to Apply: Interested candidates are requested to send in their resume to [email protected] with the subject line – Partnerships Manager_North and a short note outlining why they are suitable for this position.

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When Pratham Books launched StoryWeaver two years ago and openly licensed all the content on the platform under CC-BY4.0, we had an inkling of the potential the idea had. In the last 24 months we have been blown away by the amazing ways our community members have used the power of open licensing to adapt the content on StoryWeaver to answer certain needs in classrooms and other learning spaces.

BooksThatSpeak.com is one such initiative. The platform hosts audio and video versions of children's stories in Marathi, Hindi, English and Gujarati. Many of the stories are from Pratham Books.  Asawari Doshi, who runs the platform lives in Pune with her husband and two daughters and works part-time on reading and creating audio and video versions of stories for BooksThatSpeak.com.

Q: Tell us a little bit about why you started BooksThatSpeak.com

A: My aim behind starting this initiative was to create a medium through which more kids can listen to and read the fantastic stories that are published by Pratham Books. I currently read out books in four languages that I am familiar with (Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and English).

But wait, my daughters (age 9 years and 4 years) and my niece (3 years) also are part of the Books That Speak team. You will hear their sweet little voices at the beginning and at the end of the stories, along with their signature tunes. 

 

Q: How did you discover the StoryWeaver platform? 

I got introduced to the lovely books published by Pratham Books around 6 years ago when my daughter brought some books home from her school library. I (even more than my kids) have been in love these books since then. We must have around 30 books published by Pratham Books in our little book cupboard at home!

From Pratham Books website and blog, I got to know about the StoryWeaver platform around 2 years ago. I was so happy to know that so many of these books are now freely available for everyone to read and also to re-purpose in multiple ways.

Q: What made you want to create audio versions of the books and make videos with them for YouTube?

A: My kids were the inspiration to start  this initiative. They just love stories. But more than reading the books themselves they keep asking me to read stories to them. I love reading the stories to them too. My husband suggested why not share this joy with many more children. That was the start of BooksThatSpeak.com 

Initially, I started creating audio versions of the books but as I read the books, I felt that the creative illustrations add so much to the experience so that's why I started creating video stories as well using the illustrations.

I must say that I personally enjoy the process of selecting which book to read next. As part of this process, I get to read to a lot of books from the StoryWeaver platform. All of the books are so good, that it makes the decision making very hard :) but I am not complaining because I get to read all these fantastic books. 

Q: Where does your love for storytelling come from?

My background in in IT. But, I have been an actor in amateur theatre in my village in Konkan for many years. I think that may have been my accidental training in storytelling. Also, thanks to the inspiration from my father, ever since I was a child I used to read lots of books. I also remember that as a child I used to be mesmerized listening to Pu La Deshpande (A renowned Marathi author and my personal favourite) reading out and enacting his books. I think I might have picked up the liking for reading books aloud from those early years.

5. Do you have any plans for taking these stories to children? 

As of now, Books That Speak are available as podcasts on the several platforms like iTunes, Sticher and Player.fm.  The stories are also available as videos on our YouTube channel.  I read stories in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English. In future, I would love it if I can find other volunteers who want to join BooksThatSpeak.com and read out stories in other languages like Bengali, Urdu etc. 

I hope to connect with government schools so that they can download and play these audio or video stories for children in their schools. 

6. What kind of feedback have you received from the online community for your recordings? 

I am getting to hear a lot of positive feedback from the children and their parents for these stories. I think though that most of the praise really is deserved by Pratham Books, StoryWeaver and the authors, translators and illustrators who have created these books and made their work Open Source.

Some feedback for BooksThatSpeak.com:

"Aunty, I love these stories! Why do you record only one story every day, start recording 2 or 3?"

"Beautifully narrated stories. The changes in voice for different characters make the stories a lot of fun."

"My kid's goodnight sleep starts with these stories, thank you Asawari!"

"My child loves the stories and enjoys the ae-roo-waao-ee signature tune at the beginning and end of the stories"

"These audio stories are very helpful to keep kids engaged during long travels. It's much better than them playing games on the phone all the time"

Here's a photo of me reading my favourite Pratham Books to my daughters!

Thank you Aswari for this wonderful platform and taking the joy of reading to more children with your efforts! If you'd like to get in touch with Asawari head over to BooksThatSpeak now!

Are you using StoryWeaver content in interesting ways? Write to us at [email protected] and tell us so we can feature you on our blog.

 

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