We are delighted to share that Pratham Books’ StoryWeaver has been selected as a finalist for the WISE Awards 2018.

StoryWeaver, an initiative of Pratham Books, is among 12 finalists chosen by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) for their innovative and impactful approaches to today’s most urgent education challenges

Each year, the WISE Awards recognize and promote innovative projects from around the world that are addressing global educational challenges.

StoryWeaver is an innovative digital platform which harnesses the power of technology, open licensing and collaboration to address the global scarcity of books for children in mother tongue languages. StoryWeaver also allows for content to be translated and versioned for localized needs. This responsive platform has published over 7500 story books available in 109 languages, making knowledge accessible to children and educators beyond global access barriers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suzanne Singh, Chairperson of Pratham Books, said StoryWeaver’svision is to massively scale the creation and distribution of reading resources for children in mother tongue languages. Our endeavor is to address the global scarcity of books for children and arm every child with the power of knowledge and opportunity. By providing access to thousands of storybooks, the platform has enabled educators to make classrooms more engaging, libraries more diverse and most importantly, make learning fun for children. With StoryWeaver, we have opened up a new pathway to nurture a generation of readers”.

Stavros N. Yiannouka, CEO of WISE, said: “We congratulate StoryWeaver for making it to the finalist stage. Each of the 2018 WISE Awards finalists has constructed an effective, tested solution to a global educational challenge. Whether it’s ensuring fundamental education for refugees or creating the next generation of empathetic and conscious leaders, each project is already transforming lives, and provides an inspirational model for others to adopt. This is vital to our mission at WISE, which centers around collaboration”.

The 12 projects come from eleven countries and were shortlisted for their innovative solutions to education challenges and their positive social impact. The awards finalists were picked from a pool of 413 projects, and evaluated according to strict criteria. They must be successful, innovative education projects that have already demonstrated a transformative impact on individuals, communities, and society. They must be financially stable, have a clear development plan and be scalable and replicable.

For further information, visit http://www.wise-qatar.org/wise- awards. 

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About the WISE Awards: 

Each year, the WISE Awards recognize and promote six successful innovative projects that are addressing global educational challenges. Since 2009, WISE has received more than 3,200 applications from over 150 countries. Up until now, 54 projects have won the WISE Awards, from a wide variety of sectors and locations for their innovative character, their positive contribution and their potential for scalability and adaptability. These projects represent a growing resource of expertise and sound educational practice. Year by year, WISE is building a community of educational innovators which offers a fertile environment for groundbreaking collaborations. Today the WISE Awards network comprises pioneering projects that are helping bring real change to societies and communities.

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A year ago, on Children’s Day 2020, StoryWeaver and Pratham Education Foundation announced a collaboration to develop and grow a repository of free, openly licensed reading resources for young children. As the first step, 50 storybooks from Pratham Education Foundation were launched on the StoryWeaver platform.

 

Kahaniyaan hi Kahaniyaan -  A treasure trove of storybooks

To mark the first anniversary of this collaboration, we are delighted to share the progress that has been made since then, in creating, translating, and curating storybooks across many languages. This Children’s Day, over one thousand storybooks will be made available for public access across two platforms – StoryWeaver and Pratham Education Foundation’s Pratham Open School.

Storybooks in ten Indian languages and English

The Pratham-StoryWeaver collaboration now has uploaded more than 600 storybooks in Assamese, Bangla, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Telugu, and Urdu. This allows for open, and easy access to simple, interesting and fun storybooks.

Having these storybooks under the CC BY 4.0 license on StoryWeaver makes them available to a larger audience worldwide, and the books are free to read, download and use. At the same time, these books will give the StoryWeaver community new stories to translate, giving children around the world access to more books in their own languages.

In addition to the collection of new storybooks on StoryWeaver, a rich variety of additional storybooks are also available on the Pratham Open School website. You can “read”, “listen” and use “highlighted” storybooks. What makes these packs special is that they are context-specific libraries with storybooks created by unique individuals from various backgrounds focusing on the local community and capturing the flavour of the region they represent. The packs include books from Himachal, Tripura, Assam, Bihar and Bengal with stories in the regional languages.

 

Campaign for celebration

Starting November 14, for a week, Pratham Education Foundation teams in 20 states will work with local volunteers, mothers, and community members to share one storybook a day through the ‘Kahaniyaan hi Kahaniyaan’ campaign and do a variety of activities like role-playing, drawing, and storytelling among others.

This partnership is a small step towards the goal of building a vast treasure trove of thousands of storybooks that will be freely available for children in their mother tongues.

Come join us on an exciting journey for the week of ‘Kahaniyaan hi Kahaniyaan’!

Follow us on our social media for campaign updates!

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Explore all the storybooks available for free on StoryWeaver here:  https://bit.ly/3wHyGf6

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Our dear colleague Rajesh Khar, Editor, Pratham Books, was a part of the storytelling session organised in a Pratham Centre in Noida, with the help of wonderful volunteers from Oracle, Delhi. Rajesh writes about the day and the session.​

हर दिन की तरह उस दिन सुबह सुबह तैयार होकर मोहल्ले के बच्चे अपने सेंटर पहुँचे थे और उन्हें आशा थी कि वहाँ की दीदियाँ और भैया रोज़ की तरह पढ़ाई में उनकी मदद करेंगे। लेकिन जब बच्चे वहाँ पहुँचे तो दूसरे सेंटर वाली दीदी और कई अन्य दीदियों को देखकर वे समझ गये कि कुछ अलग होने वाला था। फिर जब सभी उम्र और कक्षाओं के बच्चों को एक ही बड़े कमरे में बैठाया गया तो इसमें कोई शक बाकी न बचा कि उस दिन रोज़ की तरह पढ़ाई तो नहीं होने वाली थी। प्रथम के सैंकड़ों केंद्रों की तरह इस केंद्र में भी बच्चों को पढ़ाई में मदद के लिए कई सारे नए नए तरीके अपनाये जाते हैं और प्रयोग भी होते रहते हैं। यहाँ उन्हें मज़ेदार किताबों और दूसरी चीज़ों के साथ साथ टीवी, कम्प्यूटर आदि की सहायता से जल्दी से जल्दी सीखने के कई ग़ैर पारम्परिक अवसर दिये जाते हैं। 

उस दिन पूर्वी दिल्ली के त्रिलोकपुरी इलाके के उस सेंटर के लगभग ६० बच्चे बड़े से कमरे में बैठकर किसी के आने का इंतज़ार कर रहे थे। उधर, वहाँ से कोई दस-बारह किलोमीटर दूर नोएडा स्थित ओरेकल कम्पनी के चार कर्मचारी सुबह सवेरे तैयार होकर अपने दफ़्तर न जा कर, उस सेंटर की ओर निकल पड़े थे। यही कोई आठ बजे वे सब एक जगह इकट्ठे होकर बच्चों से मिलने निकल पड़े थे। उन चारों में एक को छोड़कर किसी ने भी पहले बच्चों के साथ कोई काम नहीं किया था, वे तो सॉफ्टवेयर इंजीनियर थे। लेकिन चारों के मन में बच्चों से मिलने का उत्साह था। 

'गुड मॉर्निंग, नमस्ते आदि की गूँज से कमरा भर गया जैसे ही यह चारों वहाँ पहुँचे। सेंटर के बच्चों से उनका परिचय करवाया गया फिर प्रथम बुक्स के स्टोरीवीवर के बारे में भी संक्षिप्त में बताया गया। ओरेकल के चार इंजीनियरों ने स्टोरीवीवर की एक कहानी का ज़िक्र किया और बच्चों को उसी कहानी की बड़े आकार के प्रिंटआउट दिखाए। बच्चों ने कहानी सुनने की इच्छा प्रकट की और यूँ शुरू हुआ उन चारों का दिन! 

कहानी में दो नन्हे पात्र माँ  के बीमार होने पर अचानक घर आये ढेर सारे मेहमानों के लिए बिरयानी बनाते हैं और उसे बनाने में गणित का प्रयोग कुशलता से करते हैं। इससे प्रेरित होकर ओरेकल के चारों इंजीनियरों ने बच्चों के साथ अंकों और गणित पर आधारित कुछ गतिविधियाँ करने की ठानी और कहानी ख़तम होने के बाद बच्चों को चार दलों में बाँट दिया। प्रत्येक दल के साथ छोटी छोटी गेंदों के सहारे अंकों के कुछ खेल खेले गए। फिर कुछ सवाल-जवाब हुए और हर दल से तीन तीन विजेता छाँटे गए जिन्हें प्रथम, द्वितीय और तृत्तीय पुरस्कार के रूप में प्रथम बुक्स की पुस्तकें दी गईं।सबने उस एक घंटे खूब मस्ती की, कहानी सुनी, अंकों के खेल खेले और खूब सारी तालियाँ बजायीं।

सेंटर से निकलते हुए उन चारों इंजीनियरों के मन में मज़ेदार पुस्तकों, बच्चों, अंकों और कहानियों को लेकर कई प्रश्न और अनुभव थे। वे चारों इन्हीं पर चर्चा करते हुए ही शायद अपने कार्यालय तक पहुँचे होंगे उस दिन। क्या पता दिन भर वैसी ही बातों में बीता हो उनका।         

​The Oracle volunteer team, beaming with excitement also had a few words to say about the experience.

"We had a great time during the community visit to Trilokpuri, on 18^th March, 2016. We visited one of the Pratham Centres, where  children from under-served sections of the society are educated. There were around 60 children, all enthusiastic to learn and grow. We did a storytelling session with them, on the book ‘Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani’. This book is very interesting, simple, fun and creative. Through beautiful artworks and simple language, it conveys messages for kids, to help at home, nurture family relationships, take initiative, share and care, learn and observe. After the storytelling session, we played interactive games with the children, which were designed to teach them Vedic mathematics and basic arithmetic. The kids as well as the teachers and volunteers enjoyed themselves thoroughly. This activity was followed by prize distribution for the winners of the games. We gave extra prizes to those kids who took initiative and helped their teammates. Overall, it was a fun, learning session for all of us. Thanks to Pratham Books and Pratham for organizing this for us. We all look forward to more sessions with them."

– Nupur Vimal​, Oracle Delhi.

We love when stories make so many people happy! Thank you team Pratham, Delhi for helping us ​take stories to children and Oracle Volunteer Team Delhi, without whose participation, this would not have been possible.

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