Writer, translator, editor and poet Agnes N.S. Nyendwa has always been best friends with books — right from her days as a warehouse clerk where she read up all the books in stock to her rise to an editor with publishing houses. Along the way, she was always passionate about her mother tongue Chinyanja, a language belonging to the Bantu language system of Africa and spoken widely across Malawi, Zambia and the Mozambique. Agnes is translating books on the StoryWeaver platform to her mother tongue and tells us in an email interview on why children need to read more stories in Chinyanja in her country and how she plans to make sure that more of them have access to these books.

Tell us a bit about yourself? 

I am a writer, translator, editor, poet (English and Chinyanja), president of the Zambia Women Writers Association and Vice chairman of the National Arts Council, and have been in publishing circles since 1994. I started off as a Warehousing clerk being the first employee to have been engaged in that position at Macmillan Publishers Zambia Limited. I studied Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) and emerged as best student in the field. In my job as a warehouse clerk, I became friends with a bunch of books which I took time to read and enjoy. I cultivated the culture of reading each and every book that was in the warehouse. I later knew each book by its content and what to present if anyone wanted to buy any book in any field. I made it a point after that to read any new title as it came.

Due to the immense interest that I had in books, I was promoted to be Assistant Editor when the Zambia curriculum transitioned into a new one. My first assignment was to handle local languages because the whole project was a challenge. I managed to have the project take off and in the process I was seconded for an in-house training at Oxford Macmillan Education in the UK, which later catapulted me to be an Editor of the organisation back home. 

What is your personal relationship to Chinyanja and to translation?

Apart from learning the language at school, Chinyanja/Chichewa is actually my mother’s language. As it is truly my mother’s tongue – my parents (my mother being a teacher by profession) made sure we honed the skill of speaking and writing it. They would not allow us to mix any other language when speaking with them, let alone writing to them. We were encouraged to read Chinyanja/Chichewa books, which I certainly do even now. This made us know the language without measure. Our home was our training ground for the local language where neighbours would be amazed at how we spoke it even when we grew up in a low density area where only people with high education lived. Friends would laugh at our tongue because sometimes they would request us to interpret the words we spoke. 

Later in life I still had a challenge convincing my husband that the words I spoke were actual Chinyanja/Chichewa. He thought that as a family we had developed a language that we alone would understand not until I bought a dictionary from a bookstore in Malawi. He took time to refer to it on every word that he thought was specific to my family. He was amazed to have found the very words in the dictionary. 

That is the power of teaching a child her mother tongue. It is easy for me to understand other languages because I can relate them to my own. I now thank my parents for imparting that priceless skill to me. I look at myself as one of those who is open to learning and embraces criticisms when it comes to the local languages. I have written and translated a number of books that are currently being read in schools.

You have been translating STEM stories. Describe the process to us. Would this process be different for a joyful picture book?

The process is not easy when you are just starting as a translator of STEM books. The process is quite challenging because of the absence of indigenous terminologies for certain concepts and words in general. STEM books have a lot of these non-indigenous terms. But by using the meaning approach and transliteration, the challenge is quite eased. I actually enjoy translating them because I get to understand and impart the terms in a way that are simple to grasp. 

I don’t find picture books to be any different from other story books because each book presents its own challenges, some may be grammatical or orthographical but rising to the challenge is what makes translating any book unique and adventurous. 

How do you plan to take the Chinyanja stories to the children?

In our society, doing a venture totally free can be quite challenging because the conveyor of the message needs finances to operate. I would love to have every child who is stationed in a Chinyanja belt to get hold of these wonderful stories. It is a fact that a bigger chunk of my country cannot access internet which can be a transmission port for these books. I need them printed in hard copies so that they are distributed for children to have and read wherever they are, with friends and family. 

My plan is to raise funds that can allow me to print and probably sell at a nominal price and for them to be spread where their relevance is. If I can find funds that can allow me to print and transport the books, I don’t think there will be any need to sell them but to distribute them to libraries and have them approved for use in schools. For those who are able to browse on the internet, sending the link to people I know and other official arts and educational platforms is helping to spread the books. I have actually started sending the link and people are reading them. 

What do you usually read? Which language do you prefer to read in? 

Yes I do read quite a lot. A good story is what prompts my language of preference.  I do read in Chinyanja and English as well as other Zambian languages that I have quite a considerable amount of knowledge.

A glimpse of the stories Agnes is translating to Chinyanja on StoryWeaver. You can read these stories here.

Thank you Agnes! May your tribe increase!

Write in to us at [email protected] if you want us to add your native language.

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1.5 billion children and youth are out of school. With this, the need for reading materials for children that can be accessed at home, is more urgent than ever. StoryWeaver is collaborating with UNHCR, UNESCO, The Global Digital Library, The Global Book Alliance, The Asia Foundation and Learning Equality, to call for translation volunteers to accelerate the creation of multilingual digital reading material via the #TranslateAStory campaign.

You can participate in this campaign by volunteering to translate on StoryWeaver. It’s easy!

Step 1: Find the book that's just right for you

StoryWeaver has over 1000 high quality books to translate from.  A simple Level 1 book usually takes under 20 minutes to publish on StoryWeaver. You can also choose to translate books from 60 languages, like English, Hindi, French, Spanish, Thai, and many more.

Looking for some inspiration for which storybooks to translate? We’ve put together a list of books here, which includes wonderful books like Incredible Insects: A Counting Book, Bobo and the Worms, The Runaway Pig, Ira Investigates the Invisible, and several others.

And if the book you have selected has already been translated - no problem! The StoryWeaver recommendation engine will share some more options for you to choose from.

Step 2: Translate - Online or Offline!

The StoryWeaver Translate tool supports translation into 234 languages, and has a Dictionary to help you choose the appropriate words for your translation. Have a limited Internet connection? We are still here for you! You can save the book to your Offline Translate Library and sync when you have connectivity.  

Here is a step-by-step guide on using the StoryWeaver Translate tool. 

Can’t find your language? Have some queries? Write to [email protected] or review our FAQ page.

Step 3: Publish & Share

As soon as you hit publish, your storybook will be published under New Arrivals. Don't forget to share your storybook with your friends. And of course build your author profile!

Join the #TranslateAStory campaign: TRANSLATE NOW

By submitting your translation to StoryWeaver, you are agreeing to a CC-BY 4.0 license being applied to it. Terms and conditions apply. 

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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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