A  PROJECT PROPOSAL
FROM 
NAV SRISHTI  FOUNDATION (see profile) 

                                    CENTRE OF NON- FORMAL EDUCATION  

Started in 2001, Nav Srishti Foundation was formally registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, on August 4, 2004. 

Our work has been mainly in the fields of publishing and education  - in non-formal to formal education systems, in the preschool to higher education spectrum.  In publishing, we want to be recognised as quality publishers in the literacy to literature continuum.  

SUMMARY OF THE SERVICES TO BE RENDERED  BY NAV SRISHTI FOUNDATION  

EDUCATION  

The education of working children/children from non-literate/poor families and women is a major concern of Nav Srishti.  To make education more relevant and affordable for such children, especially girls, Nav Srishti has launched an ambitious programme that inter-links innovative classroom education, relevant curriculum development, teacher education, exciting teaching and learning material development and skill based primary education with a whole range of activities that are pro-child and pro-sustainability and initiate upward mobility.  

The Nav Srishti School of Enterpreneurship, the first of its kind in India , will dedicate to improving the standard of education for girls and boys in one of the largest slum clusters in East Delhi .  Interface with academia and formal schools has enabled Nav Srishti to intervene at the level of collegiate and formal public school education.  We are working toward sensitising the public school going children who would be in decision-making positions tomorrow to the realities of our country so that they have empathy for their less fortunate counterparts and grow up to be responsible and responsive adults.  

PUBLISHING  

Nav Srishti would like to carry on the tradition of storytelling by publishing literature on a regular basis and would like to undertake the translation of literature from various Indian regional languages for the people on the road to literacy; publish information packed empowering stories fro teaching the girls and the women.  For the common reader we will have a range of books in English translations that promote some of India ’s best writing and writers.  

EMPOWERING WOMEN  

Through the medium of education, Nav Srishti will attempt to enhance women’s knowledge of their rights, improve their income generation skills and help them develop greater community co-operation. Through primary education, post literacy efforts and publishing sensitive and powerful writings by women Nav Srishti  will highlights issues that sensitise women to equity gender and other issues.  

ABOUT THE PROJECT UNDER CONSIDERATION  

Abhipraya  

As you are aware, one of Nav Srishti Foundation’s major interests has been in the literature for children. Quality literature brings the best of many worlds to a child. Quality books offer the best of many worlds to a child. And in India , where children form almost a quarter of the total population and the percentage of school going children is on rise, quality publication for children is a viable option.

Yet we do not have good books for children. The writers who have been writing for children so far are either switching career or are living on a dwindling income. In most languages, books for children are either preachy or lack the quality. This coupled with the invasion by the cable television among other reasons has led to a decline in the reading habit. There is almost no translation of the bhasha literature into English or from one bhasha into another bhasha. Bhasha writers for children do not find a place in the English publishing scene. The legacy of the bhashas are getting lost and their development stunted.

The status of Indian publishing for children explains the clamour for the cheap fiction and comic books that are flooding the market. The commercial distributors have a large number of titles and money to invest in marketing. The culture represented by them has made its presence felt on our television networks as well.

Nav Srishti believes that unless we are strongly rooted in our culture and value systems we will not be able to make a mark outside India . In this age of globalisation children are expected to be global citizens. This gives all the more reason for the Indians to know, understand and appreciate ourselves, our amazingly varied diversity, our connections outside Indian cultures and with the past.

We also need to be able to make ourselves understand Europe, the USA and the other parts of the world and who they are and what they stand for. A better understanding of others and their cultures can only arise from deep rootedness in one’s own.

We can not complain that adults are not reading literature or that the bhashas and with them the treasures of traditional wisdom, knowledge, humour, values, cultures and lifestyles are dying out. If we want the adults to read we must start early – as early as possible to mould tastes and widen the knowledge bases. And for children to read we must give them books that are attractive yet are not spin offs of cheap fiction and comic books. We must be able to give them the books that are interesting, specially designed for them and that they can enjoy and read leisurely at home just the way they would watch television or read a foreign publication.

Nav Srishti would like to bring this change with Abhipraya, the Centre of Literature for Children & adults. Till now this component of Nav Srishti has been operating on a smaller level. Under this project we will expand Abhipraya to undertake the following activities:

Start a research and documentation centre to document children’s literature in as many Indian languages as possible. The first year will focus mainly on this work.

Acquire copyright of the stories that are out of print.

Start a process of translation of the documented bhasha stories into English and facilitate a process of translation between regional Indian languages.

Publish 6 books for the children and the young adults and simulteniously 6 books for adults in the first year and 20 books in the second and the third year under Sishu kahani and Baling Kahani series.

Publish 4 issues of Khel Khel Mein! each year.

Market the translated through Nav Srishti’s marketing division.

We are seeking a grant of Rs 60 lakh (Rupees sixty lakh only) that will serve as a revolving fund and help us start the work. This amount will be spent over a period of three years. The money generated from the sales from the second year onward will go in the revolving fund.

Abhipraya

A Project Proposal for Neoliterates

from Nav Srishti Foundation  

Need for the Project

The movement started by the National Literacy Mission has dramatically increased the number of non-formal education centres, managed by NGO as well as Government.

Almost ten lakh people are expending time and energy into becoming literate each year. These people do not have stimulating reading material to mach their reading skills. Inevitably there is quick slide back into illiteracy.

NBT and Directorate of Adult Education have produced some books as post literacy material. But, for a large country like India , this effort needs supplementation.  

Methodology

Nav Srishti Foundation is involved in developing and publishing books for neoliterates that would excite the reader and help them gain confidence in their reading skills so that they feel inclined to read other material relating to health, community development, law, rights and duties of citizens, et cetera.

The proposed books will be in very simple language and accessible to neoliterates – large font size, less words per page, four colour illustrations as supplements to printed words and good quality paper and printing. These form the primary requisite for attracting the neoliterate.

This series of books will consist of stories written by master writers from different Indian languages retold and translated in simple Hindi. The stories will be selected through a process involving resource people from various parts of India . Each one of them will send at least three stories. A total of seventy-two stories will be collected. These stories will be sent for rough translation so that we can read all of them and select twenty-four best stories for translation, retelling and publication.  

Our aim is to create simple, translated and retold versions of great Indian stories by prominent Indian writers. The stories selected for this project will be time-tested ones that have garnered appreciation and applause in their original, unabridged forms. Some of the writers we have in mind are, Gulzar (Hindi), Ambai (Tamil), Sara Joseph (Malayalam), Indira Goswmi (Asomia), Premchand (Hindi), Saadat Hasan Manto (Urdu), Meena kakodkar (Konkani), Asha Bage (Marathi), Kundanika Kapadia (Gujarati), Kali Patnam Rama Rao (Telugu), Mallika Ghanti (Kannada), Ashapurna Devi (Bangla), Pratibha Ray (Oriya), Amrita Pritam (Punjabi) and Dhumketu (Maithili). These names, however, are not final. The final list will be ready only after we have gone through all the seventy-two stories and selected the twenty-four best stories.

Each book in the series will include a short biography of the writer, both as a writer and a role model.   

Duration

The duration of the project will be two years from the date of sanction. During this period Srishti will bring out twenty-four coloured illustrated books under the series.

We are seeking a grant of Rs 50 lakh (Rupees fifty lakh only) that will serve as a revolving fund and help us start the work. This amount will be spent over a period of three years. The money generated from the sales from the second year onward will go in the revolving fund.  

We request you to kindly consider the above two projects and let us know enabling to send you the complete project report for your consideration.  

We looks forward to hearing from you soon.  

Thanking you  

Yours truly

For Nav Srishti Foundation  

Dr Mallika

Joint Secretary