Pratham Books Champion : Archana Gupta

The following story was sent to us by Archana Gupta.

Session conducted on : 1st September

Number of kids : 80

Number of sessions : 2

Language the session was conducted in : Hindi

Venue: School Number 63, Aas paas Nagar, Godadara  Surat.

I work as a fellow at Gandhi Fellowship. After completing my under graduation from Lady Shri Ram College in Economics and Psychology (2011-2014), I chose to be the part of this programme in order to have an exposure of education system and other stereotypes.  I  have three different Municipal schools where I engage with the students, teachers, Head Master and the community members. The area of intervention varies from activity based learning , life skills to spreading awareness in the community. Change, impact and leadership have been our driving force.

The school chosen is a Hindi Medium School. The school has a substantial number of books in the library but the system is still not good enough to make it accessible for students below 6th std. Therefore, any colorful book and stories excites them a lot. As usual, I entered the classroom and shared the idea of how about listening to a story today. The excitement can be understood by the fact that the students finished the Mid day meal before the allotted time and came back to the class. Hence, I started the story “Laadle ki Dhol” without imparting the title of the story. It started and went on without any disturbance, all because of the students’ interest. The story was titled as “Laadle aur Maalin ki kahani” by the students. They identified the individuals and the professions in the story like porter, washerman, gardener. It was followed by an art session where the students were divided into different groups and each group had drawn a part of the story. They presented it according to the sequence of the story.

It won’t be inappropriate to say that give them the space and direction; their imagination will know no boundary. For them, nothing is framed into a closed structure and a horse can also be as short as a cat! The learning they deduced was significant when they said “ hume sabki madad karni chahiye”. As grownups, we would look into the importance of each object the boy got. But for the kids,  help was noteworthy. It should not come as a surprise that story books still surpass all the gadgets and cartoons. In the end, stories impart a flawless smile to each face.

Archana also shared this Hindi report that was written about her session:

यूनिट-५
गाँधी फेलो: अर्चना गुप्ता
प्रोग्राम: प्रथम स्टोरी टेलिंग (वाचन प्रक्रिया के लिए एक छोटी सी पहल)
बैच:७
लोकेशन: सूरत

बच्चों के वाचन प्रक्रिया को सुधारने के लिए गाँधी फेलो के प्रयास की तरफ पहला कदम

टीचर डे के उपलक्ष्य में प्रथम का एक इनिसेटिव था कि कहानी-वाचन के माध्यम से पुस्तक हर स्कूल तक बच्चों के हाथों में पहुचनी चाहिए......ताकि हर बच्चा अपनी कल्पनाओ की दुनिया से होते हुए उसे यथार्थ जीवन में खुद के लिए होता हुए देखे और समझ सके.

इसी मौके का फायदा उठाते हुए सूरत के कई गाँधी फेलो ने प्रथम के इस मुहीम को अपने-अपने कार्यो के माध्यम से बच्चों तक पहुचने की कोशिश की ताकि बच्चों वाचन प्रक्रिया में मदद हो और साथ ही सुधार भी :
गाँधी फेलो अर्चना गुप्ता ने अपने स्कूल में कहानी वाचन की मदद से बच्चों के अंदर से डर निकलने की कोशिश की ताकि बच्चे निर्भीक होकर कहानी को अपने क्रिएटिविटी के माध्यम से रखे और खुद के अंदर की कौशलता को बाहर ला सके.अर्चना ने बच्चों को सबसे पहले कहानी को पढ़ कर सुनाया और बच्चों को कहा की वह कहानी को सुने पहले ध्यान से,उसके बाद बच्चों को अलग-अलग पत्रों में बाटकर उन्हें पत्रों के अनुरूप नाटक करने को कहा और अंत में एक चार्ट पेपर प्रेजेंटेशन के माध्यम से बच्चो ने अपने अनुभवों को सब के समक्ष रखा.........यह तो पहला कदम है.

कहानी अभी ख़तम नहीं हुई है यह तो शुरुआत के तरफ एक गाँधी फेलो का पहला कदम है .........कहानी तो अभी और भी है और यह कहानी सूरत के हर नगर प्राथमिक शिक्षा समिति के स्कूल तक पहुचने का प्रयास जारी है ताकि स्कूल का हर बच्चा पुस्तक को पढ़ सके और आगे बढ़ सके ......कहानी और भी जो सभी स्कूल तक पहुचने वाली है

Thank you Archana for spreading the joy of reading!

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In its fourth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 2500+ storytellers who conducted 2300+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

 What started as a small step by Pratham Books to spread the joy of reading has become a movement. In 2012, Pratham Books initiated the One Day-One Story initiative on the occasion of International Literacy Day . We will be sharing the stories of all our volunteer storytellers (Pratham Books Champions) through our blog.

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations held in 2015. 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 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 champions(at)prathambooks(dot)org.