Stories from Pratham Books Champions: September 2016

Saturday, 10 September 2016

Pratham Books Champion : Helen O'Grady, Coimbatore

Prior to the Literacy Day event, Mansi Vivek Agarwal gave us a little hint that one of the activities that they were planning with the session was the use of finger puppets. But she did not spill the secret that their performance included a stage and these amazing costumes! Take a look at the first street play they conducted in a slum in Coimbatore.

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The second play econd play presentation happened today at the KG Matriculation Government Aided School at Coimbatore, more than 70 children participated.

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Thank you Mansi and Helen O'Grady, Coimbatore for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ 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 stories from the International Literacy Day Celebrations held in 2016.

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Books for All

Books for All has been a Pratham Books Champion for a few years now. They sent us the first set of pictures from the sessions that took place at 3 of their centres in Noida.

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Thank you Books for All team for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Arthi Bhosle

Arthi Bhosle writes about the 2 storytelling sessions she conducted :

Session conducted on : 8.9.16
Number of kids : 65 + 35
Number of sessions : 1 + 1
Number of champions : 1
Language the session was conducted in : session 1 - Tamil, Session 2 - English

Session 1 - Government elementary school ( morning )

There is no other better way to celebrate the world literacy day than this story telling session ! The school where the session was conducted is a government run elementary school where the kids are from very poor background and do not have opportunity to hear stories with illustrations and props. Majority of the kids were the first timers to hear our story. As the story goes on you can spot their imaginations travels through their gleaming eyes.

As the author of The elephant bird says , “Who knows, when you go out there in nature, what unexpected friendships you'd form” i just went out in the world & made friends with these young minds. Now they wanted me to visit them often , which i have accepted happily . I mean what else can a teller expect more than this. From now on i will visit them every month with an interesting stories.

Session 2 - Eurokids Viva Academy, Tirupur

This particular session was done in the evening in our school for our children including their friends from the neighbouring locality. The medium of story was in English. Though these children are familiar with English I was little skeptical about their understanding level, because the age group was from 2.6 to 5 years. To my surprise, even the youngest listener was able to follow the story and enjoyed it to the heart. They laughed with Munia, they were worried with Munia, they were even ready to walk with her on the jungle path! I am happy that I was able to put this wonderful story in their memories.

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Thank you Arthi for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Rasika Durge

Rasika Durge sent us the following report from Surat.

Session conducted on : 22nd and 23rd august

Number of kids : 200+

Number of sessions : 2

Number of champions : 1

Language the session was conducted in : Gujarati, Hindi

22/8/16 was a different day for Faizan, Anshu, Irfan, Kamruddin and all others in Shree Mahadevbhai Desai Prathamik Shala No. 206 in Surat slums. Their morning assembly which usually consists of bhajans and news read had something different.

They saw a poster being put up by the teachers which had some images of happy kids and words written on it. They tried reading “P-R- A-T- H-A- M ….” They could read the spelling but not pronounce it.

A few kids sitting on the side where I sat with the book having attractive images started whispering to one another “ kitab, kahani, bada pakshi(big bird) “ and all such terms. Teacher’s scolding for not paying attention to the prayer assembly did not impede them from still looking at the colors and images and whispering about it to each other.

Finally I started with the story reading. Read in Gujarati once again repeated in Hindi with expressions and actions and the kids enjoyed how Muniya and the Gajapakshi were friends as they had similarity of a kind. They too knew that Gajapakshi had not eaten the horse as it was vegetarian and ate only tree leaves etc.

But they did not know whether the village people really killed the Gajapakshi or whether Muniya was able to save him. For this I made them wait for the next day assembly.

When I went to the class Kamruddin my 5th grade student and two other kids just started asking what happened next in the story. I asked them to wait till tomorrow. But being impatient little fellows they wanted it all today. I gave that book to Kamruddin who doesn’t know how to read Gujrati (even at 5th grade). He and others who had gathered around him to get a glimpse of the book and the pictures started guessing what happened and forming their own story with the help of the picture.

Kamruddin wanted to take the book home for read. As just a week ago I had checked the school library and found all the picture books for level 1, 2, 3 which were present in school (SSA books) and had a library period for them for the first time. They took those books home and those who knew reading read them and those who didn’t they just made their own stories out of the pictures.

They loved reading. And this Pratham book was the most attractive book in their lot of books at their school.

I told Kamruddin that I wish to finish the story tomorrow after which he can take that book home and bring it back next time. But he just followed me for the full day for that book. Even when his class teacher Ganpatbhai was teaching in class he came after me in 3 rd STD to get that book.

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Finally next day I read the second part and put an end to the curiosity and questions in the minds of all.

All enjoyed the story and I asked a few kids to come up and tell the story in their own words. We discussed how we should be friends with all and not mock others for their disabilities etc.

Then after the assembly many of the students from different classes approached me to check the book out. Even the teachers wanted to see the book. Now when I went for my intervention in 5th, many of the kids wanted the book for taking it home and reading it and showing it to their parents. I gave the book to Kamruddin and asked him to bring it next day and give it to the next boy who wants it and so on.

Currently the book is taking a tour of all the homes in 5th STD at school 206. The kids handle the book with care; Take it home, draw pictures from the book and many of them write the story in their copies before returning because they think they won’t get to have it once again. They relish the book to their heart full.

This book was a great seed to good reading habits into these underprivileged kids.

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Thank you Rasika for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Takshila Educational Society and DPS (Patna, Pune, Ludhiana and Coimbatore)

Shradha from Takshila Educational Society helped coordinate 82 storytelling sessions this year. Here are some of the stories from Delhi Public School (Patna, Pune, Ludhiana and Coimbatore)

DPS Ludhiana ILD 2016 Report by Pratham Books on Scribd

DPS Coimbatore ILD 2016 Report by Pratham Books on Scribd

DPS Patna ILD 2016 Report by Pratham Books on Scribd

DPS Pune : International Literacy Day 2016 by Pratham Books on Scribd

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Thank you Shradha for coordinating the sessions and to all the DPS branches for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

A Storytelling Workshop

Every year, we send out a mail to all our participants from the previous year, telling them that the registrations to join the 'One Day, One Story' campaign have begun. This year, after we mailed them, we reached out to Renu Seth and Aditi Macwan from the Pratham Gujarat team, she asked if we could arrange for a resource person to conduct a storytelling workshop before the event.

"... this is just an opportunity to make our teams even better story tellers, for them to be able to do a lot of story telling in classes and also create greater awareness in the early childhood centres by involving the government teams that are in charge of Anganwadis in city", said Renu.

What a fantastic idea! The storytelling wouldn't stop with one day... but go on to become a part of classroom activities throughout the year. Shefali Nayan (another PBChamp) came to mind. Introductions happened, ideas swapped and Shefali went on to conduct a workshop. Aditi sent us the following report of the session that was conducted :

Storytelling Workshop - Pratham Gujarat by Pratham Books on Scribd

Renu adds - "As we have conducted orientations for Anganwadi workers of Ahmedabad (urban and rural) we thought that if they also understood the importance of story telling, and its impact - and that story telling can be done in different ways - using art and activities that help children talk about the story, and, how stories can be invented from the doodles and pictures made by children - it would make story telling in class happen in the true spirit. Sometimes, these small 'how to do' sessions act as a support and encouragement for many of us."

Thank you Renu and Aditi for extending this campaign and involving many more educators and to Shefali for adding the 'masti' to this workshop. We look forward to hearing all your stories this year.

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In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Bebook Goa

Arundhati Chattopadhyaya signed up to be a champion even before we formalized the One Day, One Story event. While we were initially testing to see if anyone would be interested in conducting storytelling sessions (in 2011), we received a call from Arundhati. Since then, we look forward to seeing her name on our champions list. Bebook Goa shares her experience on their blog :

This was the week for Pratham’s book champ and Arundatti read ‘The Elephant Bird’ at Our Lady of Succoor. She was assisted by our student volunteer, Joshua Fernandes. It was read out in the passageway which has been covered from all sides to keep the rainwater away. Joshua helped with the e-book. We used yellow ribbon strips to make the bird’s tail with the help of the children. After the story was discussed and read the children enacted parts of it. The boys were also very keen on playing Munia’s character as she came out as the brave one and the girls were amused at being asked to play a male character but they went ahead and did it anyway.

Right in the beginning when no one could’ve guessed the ending, the children came up with many innovative versions to prove the elephant bird’s innocence. Someone said that Vayu had been invited by the elephant bird to play; hence he was still somewhere in the jungle. One boy said that Munia trusted him since he was an herbivore therefore he couldn’t have eaten him. It was interesting how children were able to come up with explanations immediately.

It was an intriguing story session parts of which have been captured in the following images.

Arundatti reading the story to the children at Our Lady of Succoor with out student volunteer, Joshua Fernandes.

The children made a bird tail prop out of a broom stick and some ribbons.

Initially, boys wanted to play the elephant bird while the girls played the role of Munia.

Soon they switched and the girls played the bird while the boys were more than happy playing the role of the little girl.

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Thank you Arundhati and Bebook Goa for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.

Pratham Books Champion : Book Lovers' Program for Schools

The Book Lovers' Program for Schools sent us this heart-warming account of the storytelling session they conducted at the St Louis Institute for the Deaf and Blind on 7th September, 2016 in Chennai.

As soon as we read about the event this year, we—at The ilovereadin’ Library—decided to conduct a session at the St Louis Institute for the Deaf and Blind, Adyar.

We began a correspondence with the school to fix the date in August, 2016. It was fixed for September 7, 2016 at 2.30 pm, a day when there would be no school functions or exams.

Our storytellers Karthika and Banu settled on using voice, visuals, actions, and textures as the core of their performance.

When we reached the school, headmaster John Xavier immediately made arrangements for us to conduct the session. We were ushered to class VI in the block reserved for the visually challenged students. Karthika did a telling of The Elephant Bird followed by getting students to hold a textured metal vase, to help them imagine how heavy and coarse the feet of the elephant bird must have been.

A few students found the gap at the top of the vase and wondered what it was! The teller told

them that was where the elephant bird’s socks went.

Banu performed a story about Anansi and the Pot of Stories, followed by getting students to hold a calabash that featured in the story. We also donated four English storybooks in Braille that we procured from the Indian Association for the Blind in Madurai to the school.

Mrs Delsy, a teacher for the hearing impaired children, was kind enough to depict the story for the children in sign language as we narrated the tale of The Elephant Bird. The students identified with Munia’s cause and cheered as she saved the elephant bird. They enjoyed seeing the pictures immensely after hearing the story. The joy on their faces when they saw the image on paper that connected to the image in their head was a sight to behold.

Banu did a storytelling of Plop! that the students enthusiastically participated in. We left behind our copy of The Elephant Bird, in English, for the students to read. This was sent to us by Pratham Books for the event. We also left a copy of The Elephant Bird in Tamil that we had printed out for the students to reconnect with the story.

It was an incredible experience. We can’t wait to do it again.

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Thank you Karthika, Banu and the Book Lovers' Program for Schools for spreading the joy of stories.

In its fifth edition of the 'One Day - One Story' campaign, Pratham Books was joined by 3000+ storytellers who conducted 3200+ storytelling sessions. Many, many steps towards a 'Reading India'!

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.