There’s nothing like reading books. It is a habit that every individual should inculcate from their childhood. Reading helps us to develop thoughts, know the unknown, and keeps our mind active. It helps us to understand and learn a variety of things.
With an initiative to see a book in every child’s hand, Pratham Books was set up by Rohini Nilekani, Ashok Kamath, and Rekha Menon in the year 2004.
Pratham Books – Who are they?
Pratham Books is a non-profit publisher focusing mainly on introducing children to the joy of reading. They set it up to help children have good quality, multilingual, affordable books in different formats. They want to infuse the joy of reading anywhere, everywhere, and for everyone.
They have not just made books available in a digital format but have come up with several variations. Starting from telling stories in 4 pages in a story card format to having a portable library across schools in the country, they have done it all.
The Motivation Behind StoryWeaver
StoryWeaver is a digital platform opened up by Pratham Books to provide access to multilingual books to children. We often hear that children cannot read books because of issues of affordability or not having enough books. Finding the preferred books in their languages sometimes becomes an issue too. And that’s where Pratham Books comes to our rescue.
They provide affordable books in the mother tongue language. An extremely passionate team of language champions, educators, librarians, non-profits form the backbone of the house. Parents who feel the need to introduce books to their children in their mother tongue are their driving force. Above it all, the response they get from the children spurs them to do more of what they do.
Pratham Books – Journey
Ever since they have started working on different forms of publishing stories, they have only created wonders. They have made differences in the forms of books and programs.
One of their programs is named “Missed call do, Kahani suno” so one can give a missed call and listen to the stories on their phones. They have also launched a campaign named “Donate-a-book” which aims to build crowdfunded libraries in remote areas of the country.
GIF Books – Newly launched
We’ve heard of GIFS while using social media. But how amazing would it be if we had GIF Books? Since its inception, Pratham books have been defining and re-defining the boundaries created by the publishing world.
Recently, they have launched GIF books. Sounds fascinating, right? We are sure the children will equally love this extremely innovative idea. GIF books are so interesting that it allows children to both read the story and watch the characters move. In short, it brings the book to life.
The success story
The combined power of technology, collaborative community, and open licensing has played a crucial role in their success. StoryWeaver was launched in 2015 and has over 20,000 books in over 240 languages today.
They happily shared that it is heartwarming for them to see the books on StoryWeaver being translated to lesser-used languages. Indeed, books in languages like Gora, Kora, Pawari, Santali are either scarce or non-existent, but Pratham Books have made it possible.
Awards and Recognition
In 2018, they had received the International Prize for their outstanding digital content on StoryWeaver. Even amid the pandemic, Pratham Books bagged the Library of Congress Literacy Award for the second time. Not just that, they have also got the David M Rubenstein Special response Award for their initiatives like “Missed call do, Kahani suno” and “Learn at home.”
With the praiseworthy work that they have been doing, Pratham Books has surely re-defined the boundaries set up in the publishing world.
To know more about Pratham Books, please check – Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube.
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