It is almost a month since we put out a call for storytellers. We had an idea – an idea to get 100 people to volunteer and become Pratham Books Champions for International Literacy Day (8th September)! The champions would conduct storytelling sessions in their own villages, towns and cities. Then the plan grew – we wanted champions from each and every state.
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 1 book, 1 story to as many children possible on a single day throughout the country.
We put up THIS POST on our blog and the responses slowly started trickling in. We wondered if our goal was too ambitious. Was one month enough to find all these champions? At times, it seemed like we wouldn’t find these 100 champions. But we did! We actually ended up finding more than 100 champions.
250+ Champions have signed up!
We have champions from each and every state of India!
Thousands of children are going to be listening to stories!!
We can’t express how AMAZING this is! Our office has been buzzing with energy – we’ve been calling so many people, explaining the concept, writing mails, choosing books, packing couriers (even the courier boy sat down and helped us pack couriers after seeing the numbers we were sending out).
We also hope to create a Limca record with this initiative in the hope that it brings to light the issues of joyful reading, access and multilingual publishing.
The book chosen for this campaign is one of our just released titles – “Susheela’s Kolams”. It is a wonderful book about a little girl who loves kolams and dreams big!
We will be sharing details about the sessions that are open to the public tomorrow. So, check back to see if there is a session that you can attend in your village/town/city.
All our champions will also be sharing details of their sessions through photos and blog posts.
Join Pratham Books and over 250 storytellers in all of India’s 28 states as we weave a story that unites thousands of children in India on International Literacy Day (8 th September 2012).