"'Scratch! Scratch! Scratch' is such a charming story written by Dawa Lahmu Yolmo. Here, the protagonist  Manu, is a naughty little girl who loves playing hopscotch! She's always counting 1-10 when she plays which is great way to introduce counting to little kids.

When I first got the manuscripy I was very curious about what a story with a title like 'Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!' could be about. When I read the story, I immediately fell in love with the Manu. I always enjoy creating rebellious girl characters who are bold, naughty, brave, clever and full of life. The story is based in he beautiful misty hills of Sikkim with colourful houses connected by twisty, curvy, sloping roads. My favourite part of the book was drawing the beautiful greenery of Sikkim.

To be able to create Manu’s character I had to do some research on Sikkim, the people and especially school going kids. I searched for reference images on the internet for village life in Sikkim. Maithili Doshi, who Art Directed the book shared images of the actual school where the writer, a teacher,teaches. Based on these references I came up with a few rough sketches of Manu and other family members. Though there is no mention in the story, I added a baby sibling. Timely feedback from Maithili and Bijal helped with the finishing touches. For the final drawings I used charcoal pencil for outline and watercolour washes. 

I have tried to incorporate the lifestyle and culture of the region while keeping the visuals as simple as possible.

I could easily relate to Manu’s character as I was a bold, naughty and rebellious child myself. I used to love playing 'Ghar, Ghar' or House as a kid. And the best part of the game was that you could play it alone!

Now that the book has been published on StoryWeaver I am keen to know how children respond to the visual identity of Manu created by me!"

 

 

 

 

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

About the Organization

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 3 years, we have invested deeply in technology based initiatives to further our mission. We are now looking for a Data & Insights Manager as we significantly scale these initiatives.

About the Platform

StoryWeaver 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 and the goal is to open source the code as well. In two years, StoryWeaver has scaled from 800 stories in 24 languages to 6500 stories in 104 languages by engaging with a community of users. We want every child to have access to quality reading resources in their own language.

StoryWeaver is being recognized as an emerging innovation that can transform the early literacy reader ecosystem globally. Our vision is for StoryWeaver to be the largest multilingual open library in the world for children by empowering communities to address the scarcity of reading resources in their mother tongue languages and scale the quantity and quality of content being produced.

Job Description

We are looking for a passionate individual wanting to make a difference, one who believes that technology can be a powerful enabler in creating equitable access to resources. This role requires a manager who can work effectively, both independently and collaboratively, in a team environment and deliver the project in a timely manner within allocated resources and budgets.

We are looking for a Data & Insights Manager to work closely alongside our Product Development team and other internal teams. You will discover the insights within our vast data sets, and help us make smarter decisions to deliver better results for our end users.

In this role, you will be responsible for using statistical techniques to analyse and interpret data, take complete ownership of Google Analytics, identify trends and provide insightful reports to internal and external audience.

We’re looking for a self-motivated, detail-oriented individual who loves digging into data, developing insights and communicating data-based recommendations. You will work closely with the internal teams and tech partners to implement your recommendations, track the impact and course correct.

The position will report to the Head of Digital Projects but also requires working closely with the top management. In a 2 year time-frame the project outcomes are expected to scale by 10x and the Data and Insights Manager will play a critical role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the platform at this scale. Most importantly the person needs to be an out-of-the box thinker and should be a strong believer and propagator of use of open technologies.

The individual will be responsible for the following:

Work closely with internal product owners to understand the target audience and their motivations, generate the product enhancement, development ideas and requirements docs.

• Perform analysis and provide insights regarding the market, trends, campaigns, and performances.

• Build data pipelines to understand and measure readership, etc

• Perform regular data analysis to demystify, assess and predict content gaps.

• Extracting valuable insight from our data and generating analysis that drives user retention and conversion.

• Master and perform all steps required to conduct advanced analytics and create analysis-ready data sets.

• Take all data driven ideas to fruition by working closely with the implementation teams

• Effectively respond to ad-hoc report and analysis requests from other teams as needed.

• Be the bridge in between organization and other data-for-good communities

Must haves

• BTech/MSc/MCA or other graduate degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Market Research, Operational Research, or related quantitative discipline.

• Proven work experience working with large sets of data and analytics, preferably in a marketing, tech or operational environment.

• Ability to interpret findings through data visualization and delivery of compelling presentations to both internal and external stakeholders.

• Strong analytical thought process, ability to extract data and transform it into valuable, actionable insight.

• Expertise with GA and common Business Intelligence tools.

• Good technical background with some hands on experience with Python/R to perform data analysis and machine learning

• Very good written and verbal communication skills

• 4-5 years of experience in the industry

Nice to have but not mandatory

• Experience working with non-profits.    

• Domain knowledge in publishing industry, Indic language experience    

Location: Position is based out of Bangalore and we are open to part-time as well as full-time position. Project is expected to complete within a 2 year time-frame.

Salary: Compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Interested candidates can email their resume to [email protected]

 

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