At Pratham Books, we believe in the power of stories – good stories. For well over a decade we have strived hard to reach children across India with a variety of award-winning stories across 18 Indian languages. With our digital crowd-sourcing platform – StoryWeaver we now share the power of stories with a global community of educators, parents, authors, illustrators and translators.

StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly-licensed, multilingual children's stories. It allows its users to read, create and translate stories into Indian and international languages in the hope that children across the world can read quality stories in a languages of their choice. .

StoryWeaver is looking for an intern for our Digital Content  

Project Details

Migration of Pratham Books stories in multiple languages in digital formats onto StoryWeaver

• Working on our language content for StoryWeaver

• Publishing our stories on digital platform by ensuring a visually appealing layout

• Working with external agencies and proofreaders.

• Uploading books on StoryWeaver which involves tagging stories and images in a way that makes it accessible to users

Are you the intern we're looking for?

This is the perfect project if you're a college student or a graduate looking to add some work experience to your resume.

The ideal candidate will

1. Have good understanding of English and any one (or more) of the following  languages: Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.

2. Have an eye for editing and love for languages and children’s stories

3. Works well with a team

The internship will be for a 3-month period and the intern will receive an honorarium. The role requires the intern to be based out of Bangalore and work from our office.

Please send your resume to [email protected] with 'Intern - Digital Content for StoryWeaver' in the subject line of the email.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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We are delighted to host books published by the Nature Conservation Foundation, and make them available for free under the CC BY 4.0 license on StoryWeaver. We hope that our community will enjoy reading & learning more about India's wildlfe through these stories, and that they will be translated into many more languages. The first 2 books resulting through this partnership are Gyalmo, the Queen of the Mountains and  Birds That Sing Their Name.

In this post, we'll give you a closer look at the making of 'Gyalmo, Queen of the Mountains'!

About the book: Koyna and her friend Lobzang are in Spiti Valley, trying to spot the most elusive cat in the world, while Gyalmo, the snow leopard, watches from a distance as they try their best to see her. Written by Ranjini Murali and illustrated by Komal Jain.

Ranjini Murali, the author, is the Conservation Scientist at the Snow Leopard Trust. In this interview, she tells us about her fascination with the mountains and why she wrote a children's book about snow leopards.

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Tell us why you chose to write about the mountains?

This story was first written for the 'Hindu in School' newspaper supplement which was meant for children studying in Bangalore and Chennai. I wrote this story then, as I wanted to introduce children to the fascinating animals of the Trans-Himalaya.

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

When I was a student in Bangalore, I didn't know there were snow leopards in India, nor did I know of these stunning landscapes or the amazing biodiversity present here. Maybe children now are more aware of this, but through this story, I hope to bring a bit more awareness to these landscapes.

Illustration by Komal Jain

What inspired you to conceptualize this story?

I've worked in the Trans-Himalaya for more than 10 years now and have never really seen a snow leopard! Part of this story was inspired by my constant search to see the snow leopard. The chase sequence was inspired by an video I had seen online of a snow leopard chasing a bharal!

Illustration by Komal Jain

How did you get to know about StoryWeaver, and what prompted you to make your story available on our platform?

I knew of the amazing work that StoryWeaver was doing, making reading accessible to children everywhere, so I jumped at the opportunity when a colleague reached out to me about plans of creating books on the platform. I especially love how the stories on the platform are accompanied by amazing illustrations. I was so excited to see this story come alive through the illustrations! I also like that the stories are available to be translated, so they are accessible to more children around India.

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 Read Gyalmo, the Queen of the Mountains

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Last year in November, Pratham Books launched a brand-new set of four PhoneStories that invited readers to take a walk in the wild. The books were written by Sejal Mehta, travel writer, wildlife enthusiast, and Editor-in-Chief, Nature inFocus and illustrated by the award-winning cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty of Green Humour fame. Captivating visuals and simple story lines lent themselves to audio-visual adaptation that could be enjoyed on a variety of handheld devices and that were sure to engage young readers.

Payoshni Saraf and Khyati Datt write about how they ensured the stories reached teachers, classrooms and most importantly, children, through their outreach efforts.

The wildlife set of #Phonestories was an exciting set of books. The  books were short and simple, visually arresting and aurally engaging- guaranteed to capture the attention of the tiny tots!

We chose a set of partners for the exclusive on-ground launch keeping in mind the age group the books were meant for, which was under Grade 4. Our chosen partners, including Pratham Delhi, Pratham ECE, Pratham's Learning with Vodafone project, Agastya Foundation and Pratham's Smart Step Preschools worked in the space of early literacy with a focus on Science and Environment.

Direct to teachers’ phones

More and more organisations are using WhatsApp these days to connect their on-field employees for swifter communication and sharing of information. For education organisations specifically, WhatsApp groups connect educators to draw from each other’s experiences and learn collectively. This was why we chose WhatsApp as our primary vehicle for campaign communication with teachers for #PhoneStories. Also, since the stories were available in video format, we believed that sending them directly to educator’s phones would make it easier for them to access.

Thanks to the collaboration with our partner organisations, #Phonestories reached 2,800 Schools/ Centres and teachers impacting over 56,000 children. We engaged with participating educators twice a week via the WhatsApp groups.

A session in progress for बनबबलाव! बनबबलाव! in an Agastya Foundation centre in Chandauli, U.P.

We first shared a 4-week reading plan with the teachers of participating organisations, post which, every Thursday, one book and 2 related activities were shared. Teachers were appreciative of the detailed activities related to the books as it helped engage children further with the story and its concept. We also conducted fun contests for the teachers on the WhatsApp groups, where they sent their entries via WhatsApp too. We found WhatsApp to be a quick, direct and effective way of communicating with teachers.

An activity being done for Watch Out! The Tiger Is Here at a Pratham Delhi centre

Going Forward

We hope to continue exploring WhatsApp as a channel of communication with our outreach partners in the future to share great content and new updates from us!

You can read, watch and listen to all four PhoneStories here.

                                   

Did You Hear? being read in a Pratham ECE Centre.

 

 

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