History
Before we talk about Pratham Books’ One Day One Story, let’s first talk about Pratham Books! Founded in 2004, Pratham Book’s mission is to put a book in every child’s hand. That would have been a rather simple mission in Iceland, a country of 350,000 people and also everybody reads in Iceland. But India has a billion people, including around 200,000,000 children under the age of 10.
In the last 15 years, Pratham Books has done a few things really well:
- Successfully raised money to fund its ambitious goal, including from Google, Oracle, Cisco and more.
- Published storybooks across themes.
- Printed them and sold them at ridiculously low prices, filling in for NBT and CBT, who aren’t as active as earlier.
- Maintained amazingly high quality, like Ammachi’s Amazing Machines, Angry Akku, and Nani’s Walk to the Park. Many titles from Pratham Books are on the Best of Indian Children’s Writing (BICW) award list.
- The storybooks are available free on its online platform Storyweaver, which recently turned four. With over 15,000 stories in 205 languages, it makes reading truly accessible.
Pratham Books also runs the One Day One Story Campaign on World Literacy Day.
Started in 2012, it asks for volunteers (“champions”) across the country to read out the same story across the country on the same day. From 250 champions in 2012 it has grown to 5700 in 2018.
#OneDayOneStory This Year
The stories chosen were The Weightlifting Princess by Sowmya Rajendran and Debasmita Dasgupta and Gappu Can’t Dance by Menaka Raman and Krishna Chandran.
As usual, the BLPS team participated extensively. We run a reading program, a publishing house, and a kid-lit award program, so obviously we believe in the cause of children’s storybooks. We told stories in 5 venues – The most creative we got was by telling The Weightlifting Princess in a gym!
Pratham is expected to report between 6700 – 7000 volunteers in 2019. We feel that it’s not good enough. As a community, we really need to rally behind this hashtag. We’re really rooting for 10000 volunteers in 2020!
But, till that happens, let’s celebrate 2019. Just for you, we’ve put together a giant list of events that we spotted on the internet. Are you in it? Drop a comment and say hi! Did we leave you out? Let us know and we’ll fix it.
1. Lightroom Bookstore, Bangalore
The author of Gappu Can’t Dance, Menaka Raman turned into a #PBchamp, at the Lightroom Book Store in Bangalore. She’s the author of one of the 2 chosen books, so she makes it to number 1 on our list!
2. Buguri Library, Bengaluru
Menaka also told the story at the Buguri library, a safe space for kids of ragpickers.
3. Your Story Bag
The storytellers at Your Story Bag reached out to a large number of people, covering regions of Delhi/NCR, Noida, Gurgaon, Meerut, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kolhapur and Navasari.
One of the YSB storytellers creatively merged the two stories in her storytelling session and made it even more fun!
4. PenThrill Publication House, Nagaland
On International Literacy Day, kids and adults gathered at the newly established PenThrill Publishing house to read out the two stories .
5. Strength System, Chennai
The Strength System fitness centre hosted an open-house storytelling session of The Weightlifting Princess. Inspired by the story of Princess Nila, the tiny tots ran to lift a 15kg dumbbell at the end of the session!
6. Big Buddy World, Mumbai
The team at Big Buddy World have been Pratham champions since 2014. This year, they told the stories at various venues in Mumbai.
7. Azad India Foundation, Kishanganj
The foundation is a well-recognised NGO located in Bihar. The team at AIF made #OneDayOneStory fun through kids doing a role-play, learning to dance with Gappu.
The storytelling sessions were conducted in their native language, reaching out to all the locals.
8. Spark-A-Change Foundation, Mumbai (SAC)
The members of the Mumbai-based non-profit organisation Spark-A-Change Foundation, Mumbai held some interesting storytelling sessions at different locations across Mumbai.
9. Khel Khel Mein, Mumbai
The Khel Khel Mein team conducted 19 storytelling sessions across India at each of its centres. A total of 29 teachers became #PBchamps and told the story of The Weightlifting Princess to 800+ children.
10. Helen O’Grady International Studio, Chennai
The EduDrama Academy in Chennai took up the task of storytelling too. Many parents along with their children turned up to listen to the storytelling of The Weightlifting Princess and to see what happens when Gappu Can’t Dance.
11. Kalpavriksh and RAAH
The Pune-based environmental nonprofit Kalpavriksh along with RAAH (established under the charge of The Raahat Foundation), got together to host the storytelling of The Weightlifting Princess and Gappu Can’t Dance in Pune. The session was conducted by storyteller Jahnvi Sreedhar.
12. Titliyan and AA’s Book Nerds, Noida
Titliyan (an NGO founded by Anita Gurnani) and AA’s Book Nerds (a book-club run by Archana Atri) collaborated together to bring the stories of Princess Nila and Gappu to the children of Noida on the occasion of Pratham’s #OneDayOneStory. The children made their own props and shared other stories as well. You can follow the book club’s facebook page for updates.
13. Nurture Roots, Greater Noida
Nurture Roots is an initiative of two mothers to facilitate the growth of children.
In association with Jamboree – The Preschool Safari, they told the two stories of Princess Nila and Gappu on International Literacy Day.
14. Book Lovers’ Program for Schools (BLPS)
The storytellers at BLPS conducted a number of sessions across Chennai at 4 different schools and earned the title of #PBchamps again this year.
15. Little Readers’ Nook
Little Readers’ Nook, founded by Mumbai-based Devaki Bhujang Gajare, partnered with Uudaan Montessori Preschool at Thane to be a part of Pratham’s One Day One Story event.
16. Hangout Library, Bengaluru
At the Hangout Library, Bengaluru, founder Aanchal Agrawal conducted a session with activities for kids at the library.
17. The Story Monkey
Aashima Mishra, the founder-director of The Story Monkey, participated in Pratham’s One Day One Story and celebrated the International Literacy Day with the two chosen stories.
18. Kahani Tree
Kahani Tree, the children’s bookstore based in Mumbai, also celebrated the event.
19. GetLitt
The GetLitt digital library app was a part of the revolution by doing an online story reading session of the two stories for Pratham’s #OneDayOneStory event.
20. The Book Shelf, Hyderabad
The Book Shelf library, Hyderabad was part the campaign. Their resident storytellers along with Lavanya Srinivas of Katha Kamamishu told the stories of Gappu and Princess Nila to the kids.
21. Willows of Wisdom (WOW), Noida
The WOW team celebrated International Literacy Day by rising up to the challenge and signing up as #PBchamps.
22. Odyssey Book Store, Chennai
The Odyssey Book Stores at Adyar and Thiruvanmiyur partnered with Katha Kamamishu for Pratham’s One Day One Story for storytelling sessions on 8th September.
23. AIM for Seva
The pan-Indian, non-profit AIM for Seva trust participated in Pratham’s reading revolution, telling stories at one of their Chennai Chatralayams.
24. The Reading Owl, Jaipur
The Reading Owl, Jaipur, a Jaipur-based storytelling organisation did multiple storytelling sessions as part of Pratham’s campaign.
25. Booktique Library, Ghaziabad
Booktique Library and activity club in NCR region was a champion for Pratham’s 2019 #OneDayOneStory campaign too.
26. Nest And Den Library, Vadodara
Nest And Den Library became #PBchamps, telling the stories to the kids at their little library.
27. The Learning Tree Preschool, Ahmedabad
The The Learning Tree Preschoolat Chandkheda also held a storytelling session in association with Pratham on World Literacy Day.
28. The Learning Kids Preschool, Ahmedabad
The Learning Kids Preschool became #PBchamps by signing up and doing a storytelling session on 8th September at Navavadaj.
29. Happy Kids International Preschool, Ahmedabad
The school registered for Pratham’s One Day One Story and held a session at Jantanagar.
30. Parivartan, Bihar
Parivartan integrated rural community development initiative in Siwan, Bihar, organised a fun-filled storytelling campaign in 20 different primary and middle schools. The Hindi version of The Weighlifting Princess, Rajkumari Neela, was told to the students along with different activities like painting, drama, reading and singing action songs.
31. Happy Children’s library, Uttarakhand
Happy Children’s Library is a community library in Seem, Uttarakhand which conducted readings of both Gappu Can’t Dance and The Weightlifting Princess.
Individual storytellers also rose to the occasion and conducted storytelling sessions!
32. Saumya Goel (@saumyagoel84) did a storytelling of Gappu Naach Nahi Sakti.
33. Kokila Gupta (@sunshinebluegirl) told The Weightlifting Princess.
34. Sujata Suri (@sujata.suri), a member of DEEP Foundation, took Gappu’s story to a few kids at New Delhi.
35. Nikita Arora Kashyap (@bb_beyondboundaries) who runs the Beyond Boundaries program conducted a storytelling session at The Miracle Minds in Delhi.
36. Bhavna Bhat (@bhavna.silverfish) along with Richa (@lighttravelaction), the mastermind behind Light Travel Action, conducted storytelling sessions for kids at Gurgaon.
37. Shefali Malhotra (@shefmalh), who began her storytelling journey in 2015 as a part of Pratham’s One Day One Story campaign, became a #PBchamp this year too by telling Gappu’s story in Delhi.
38. @fireflieslightup and @thewordelephant.
39. Neha Mehta Modi (@bookhoarder_neha) enacted the story of Gappu Can’t Dance with the kids at Mumbai.
40. Vidya JS Nesarikar (@sodapop_stories) told the stories of The Weightlifting Princess and Gappu Can’t Dance at Amanora.
41. Sonali Sathaye and Vijaya Balasubramaniam told the stories to the crowd assembled at Gazebo, Puttenahalli Lake, Bangalore.
42. Deepika Arun did a session at the Jhoola Activity Centre in Chennai.
43. Leonard Fernandes, co-founder of the Publishing Next Conference, conducted a storytelling session at The Dogears Bookshop in Margao (Goa).
44. Jayalakshmi told the story of Princess Nila in Madurai.
45. Alma Dhingra (@almastorytime), the storyteller at Storytime told the stories in Delhi.
46. Myth Aunty (@mythaunty) who has a passion for storytelling, did a session for her kids at the school she works with. (Also, if you know her actual name, do tell us!)
More sessions on their way…
47. Stomp: The Drama Club, Goregaon – This performing arts club will be telling stories of Princess Nila and Gappu on 14th September. Don’t miss out, check the details here.
48. Aryah (@aryahinspires) conducts storytelling sessions throughout September, as a part of Pratham’s #OneDayOneStory, at schools in Delhi/NCR to reach out to as many kids as possible. You can still request a complimentary session and be part of the campaign!
49. Parvathy Easwaram is conducting a session on 14th September at HSR Layout in Bangalore. You can contact her at kay1kay2@yahoo.com
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