Pratham Books Champion : Bhawana Shrestha

This International Literacy Day, Pratham Books has taken a 1000 steps towards a 'Reading India'

What started as a small step by Pratham Books to spread the joy of reading has become a movement. Last year Pratham Books initiated the One Day-One Story initiative on the occasion of International Literacy Day and we conducted over 250 storytelling sessions. This year we are delighted that over a 1000 sessions are happening across the length and breadth of the country.We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

This story was sent to us by Bhawana Shrestha from Nepal. She said :

On the occasion of International Literacy day, we successfully conducted 'One Day-One Story' Campaign for our 6th and 7th graders. I told them the story and they presented it with one of their favorite mode i.e. role play. Here are some sneak peek of our 'Story presentation' at Jyotidaya Co-operative Secondary School...

Storytelling sessions conducted on 6th September at Chapagaun, Nepal

Bhawana wrote ....

This was the first time I was celebrating 'International Literacy Day' and this first time became the most memorable day of my life. As I knew about 'One Day-One Story' Campaign' of Pratham books I filled the form and also shared this with my students. They became very happy. As the story about giant is liked by my grade six and seven students. I thought to share it with them. My students love doing role plays of the story. So we made a plan to act the story. As, I got the e-book of the story 'Paplu, the giant' I went to school and shared with them the story on 4th of September.

Bhawana sharing the story with her class of 6th graders

6th graders listening to the story of Paplu, the Giant

Then, they preapred it with some role divisions and also work division. Some translated the story in Nepali, some gathered the materials and so on.

Preparing for the role play

Then as we had local festival on 7th of September. We thought to have a role play on 6th of September.

They became ready and showed their story to grade eight students. They became really happy.

Angar and his friends blocking the way to the village

It was a great experience. I really enjoyed it. As well as my students enjoyed a lot. Through this I also 

made them aware about what literacy day is and why is it important. My students like the character 'Paplu' very much. Some also wished to be like paplu in their society, a very helpful and kind boy. While we were planning for the role play, the students came out with some creative and crazy ideas about presenting the story and mostly about making size of the giant. And finally they came up with carrying a boy by three boys and wearing a raincoat and making the size big. When the story was finally executed, the same scene became the most memorable scene of my life.

Paplu, the giant (best scene of my life!)

We all became happy to share the story with the person whom we are near to. The day was the most
memorable for my students too..

 Bhawana also shared this lovely video of the storytelling session.

Thank you Bhawana 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.