Pratham Books Champion : Anchal Sondhi

For International Literacy Day (8th September), we had a dream - we wished that 100 people would volunteer to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We ended up finding more than 250 champions to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

The session went off very very well and besides children and school teacher and myself too had a great time seeing the children's enthusiasm. 

In all the entire school strength of 25 children attended the session.

The children were so exited as soon as I entered the school and they all came to receive me.

We tied the banner on the window. Read aloud the story in Hindi to them page by page while holding the book towards them. Some children shared the English book to refer to pictures at the back. Asked them questions as to where is Tamil Nadu, when do we fly kites , what festivals we celebrate here, name some of the languages of India ....

The book is so self explanatory due to lovely kolams by Priya Kuriyan that when i handed over chart paper and crayons to children before I could mention they started drawing kolams and rangoli. For smaller children age 3 to 8 yrs I had to guide and 9 to 11 started making 3-4 kolams. Then we tied strings to their kolam drawings and hung some of them on the window. Some children got it tied and decided to take it home to show to their parents.

Since we had spent over one hour, the school teacher decided to let the children read the book for English language class on Monday. In the end when I asked them where do you think Susheela will draw her next kolam on they all responded in chorus "On chart PAPER of course"

And we ended on that note. (By the way one of the student's friend's name was Pratham so they all went shouting Pratham Pratham for their midday meal). 

Anjali and students of Rajkiya Prathamik Vidyalaya, Dhoran Kahs, Dehradun 248001 wishes to thank you Pratham Books.

Thank you Anchal for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

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.