Celebrating International Literacy Day with 3000+ Storytellers and 3200+ Sessions
8 years ago
And… International Literacy Day is finally here!
One month since we put out the call for registrations and the month has just flown by. The stories that pour in before the event are as heart-warming as the ones of the event. From an organization that is taking the story to hundreds of villages across 11 states to one that conducted a training for teachers/educators so that they could facilitate their sessions better, from storytelling sessions in government schools to sessions in orphanages, from an entire family deciding to conduct a session to many kids forming a group to tell a story. Also, several volunteer translators came forward to translate the story into other languages to increase the multilingual scope of the campaign.
Champions have been preparing to introduce little Munia and the elephant bird to children across the country. “How many champions?”, you ask
In the 5th edition, the ‘One Day-One Story’ campaign will see :
Sessions in 25 Languages
3000+ Champions
3200+ Storytelling Sessions
Thousands of children listening to ‘The Elephant Bird’
3000+ Champions
3200+ Storytelling Sessions
Thousands of children listening to ‘The Elephant Bird’
This year’s chosen book is The Elephant Bird (written by Arefa Tehsin and illustrated by Sonal Goyal And Sumit Sakhuja. A story about a magical bird, and a brave and curious child! This story could be used to talk about themes of friendship, courage, endangered species and more.
Arefa Tehsin excellently captures the essence of this year’s campaign :
“You are a cripple only if you think you are.” My disabled grandmother Khurshid Babu Tehsin, an initiator of women’s education movement in Rajasthan, always said. And Munia believes the same. Who knows, when you go out there in nature, what unexpected friendships you’d form, what fears and disabilities you’d overcome? It is so heartwarming for me to see the Elephant Bird, which was hunted down to extinction in recent past, come alive in the hearts of thousands of children across borders of states and neighbourhoods. Pratham Books, you rock! And kudos to the zealous champions!
A majority of this year’s sessions are slotted to take place on 10th September (so that more people and children can participate). If you’ve just found out about our International Day celebrations, fret not! To conduct your own storytelling session, please register, download the book and share it with a child/children.
HOW TO BE A #PBCHAMP
- Choose the place and time you want to conduct the session. Identify places where you can conduct this event in your city – A government school, an NGO, a library, a bookstore, a park, a train, your building…any place with regular kids footfalls. Approach the organization and explain the concept to them. Most of them will be happy to host you.
- Prepare for your session. Read the book a few times. If you are reading to a younger age-group, see how you can tell the story without actually reading the book (to retain their attention).
- You could also add an activity to your session. Take a look at the activity ideas we’ve shared this year.
- After the session, send us a short write-up or send us some photos from the event and we will feature it on the champions blog. Mail us at champions(at)prathambooks(dot)org.
If you want to attend a session, we as well as some of our champions are conducting events that are open to the public. Check the full list here.
If you are sharing pictures/news about your event, please use the hashtag #PBChamps on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter so that we and other champions can also follow your updates. You can:
- Tweet us at @prathambooks
- Find us on Facebook at : www.facebook.com/prathambooks
- Say hi on Instagram at : @pratham.books (note : there is a dot between the two words)
Join Pratham Books and 3000+ storytellers in sharing the joy of stories.
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About the campaign :
At Pratham Books we have a dream, to see “A book in every child’s hand”. We understand that to reach the 200 million + children in India is going to take a while. In the meantime, we decided to take ‘One Day, One Story’ campaign to as many children possible on a single day throughout the country.
This initiative is part of the Pratham Books’ Champions program where we encourage our community of volunteers to conduct reading sessions. These sessions are conducted free of cost and mostly with children from under-served communities. The Pratham Books’ Champions program is a one-of its kind volunteer program that has scaled to a national level with more and more volunteers wanting to join us in this movement.
