Pratham Books Champion : Anitha Jebaraj
13 years ago
24th September was a very special day for all of us at Pratham Books. We managed to create a book in 4 languages in 2 days. But, we also had many friends from within our community volunteer to become a ‘Pratham Books Champion‘ and conduct storytelling sessions in their neighbourhoods. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.
Today’s story comes from Anitha Jebaraj who conducted a
storytelling session in Chennai. Anitha is a blogger, trainer, instructional designer, and social media enthusiast. She authors four blogs that include topics such as travel, lifestyle, photos, education, and work environments. She has been working for close to 11 years now. She is a good singer and foodie too. You can follow Anitha on Twitter at @ani_twits and visit her first blog.
Why did you volunteer to be a Pratham Books Champion?
Fortunately, I had completed a certificate course in story telling from the famous storyteller Jeeva Raghunath. I also was lucky to view the performance of another storyteller Geetha Ramanujam. I had heard about Pratham Books before as I volunteer for Eureka Child. So, when i got an opportunity to tell a story with Pratham Books, i grabbed it. I thank AIKYA for opening their doors for storytelling. And enjoyed the event too.
About AIKYA
AIKYA’s vision is to enhance the quality of life of individuals with special needs through education and training to enable them to achieve their fullest potential and integrate them into the mainstream. (Source : AIKYA website)
Anitha writes about her storytelling session at AIKYA…
The storytelling session went on well at the AIKYA centre in Chennai. The audience of 20 people included special children, parents, and special educators. All the stories were narrated in Tamil and Tanglish! Pratham Books’ Champion Anitha started the session with a brief about Girl Child Day. Next she told the story “Subbu, the Signal.” At the end of the story, the children recollected the traffic lights of green, orange, and red and what each color meant.
The next story was “Ting Tong.” The boy in the story tries to sleep but is disturbed by various noises. At the end of the story, the children were asked about the various noises that disturbed their sleep. One boy was quick to mention “generator noise”…rrrrrrrrrrr….. Another boy barked like a dog. Ting Tong story was a favorite of parents too. Parents felt that the story was simple and children could easily understand it.
The next story was “En Udal Pesuvathai Kelungal”( Hear my body speak). At the end of the story, one of the boys told a lot of noises like coughing, sneezing, snoring, and clicking fingers etc that was not part of the original version 🙂
After the warm up with the three short stories, everyone was geared up to hear the “Ulta Pulta Girl” story. Everyone laughed when they heard that the Ulta Pulta girl could not bear the stink of dog poo.
The children were glued to their seats and listened to the stories keenly. Parents were eager to know where they could purchase Pratham books in Chennai. On the whole, it was a successful event. Three cheers to Pratham Books and all the participants.
Thank you Anitha for spreading the joy of reading!
Click here to read the stories sent in by all the Pratham Books Champions.
Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting ‘a book in every child’s hand’, write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.
