World Book Day
PlanetRead joins Google, LitCam, and UNESCO to celebrate World Book Day on The Literacy Project
Innovative projects from around the world are highlighted on google.com/literacy
April 23, 2008 - In honor of World Book Day, PlanetRead has teamed up with Google, LitCam, and UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning to share tools and promote innovative literacy and reading-related projects on The Literacy Project, a resource for literacy organizations, educators, and anyone interested in reading.
The World Book Day Innovative Projects page highlights projects being carried out on a local, national, and international level, and provides free tools and information that can be used by other organizations around the world.
PlanetRead is a not for profit organization with the simple vision of a reading planet - a planet where everyone can read and has access to interesting and affordable reading opportunities in native and other language(s).
PlanetRead pioneered the concept of "Same-Language Subtitling" (SLS) for mass literacy, by suggesting its implementation on the immensely popular Bollywood film songs on TV in India. SLS is already on several song-based TV programs on Doordarshan, India's national broadcaster. Our main target group is the early-literates, people who are officially "literate" but who cannot read, for example, the headlines of a newspaper.
On one hand India is one of the largest and fastest growing economies with the second largest English-speaking technical workforce in the world but on the other hand it is difficult to find a single children's book in many villages. But since 600 million Indians already watch TV, how can the reading experience become an integral part of media that are already in people's lives? "It's a question we ask ourselves at PlanetRead to inspire solutions. We are proud to share our creations on The Literacy Project and learn from other organizations that have taken on the challenge of promoting a reading planet," said Brij Kothari, Founder and President, PlanetRead.
PlanetRead's "karaoke" approach to literacy provides automatic and regular reading practice to over 200 million early-literates in India. In addition, nearly 270 million illiterate people are motivated to become literate.
"The worlds of technology, literature and learning have a responsibility to play whatever part they can in helping to alleviate the problem of illiteracy. We're very excited to be involved in this project and help provide a platform through which literacy and reading promotion organizations can connect and share best practices and tools," said Santiago de la Mora, European Partnerships Lead, Books.
About The Literacy Project:
As a problem that touches all countries and populations, there's a pressing need to share ideas, successful projects, information, and statistics about literacy-as well as find new ways to collaborate. The organizations behind The Literacy Project believe that the Internet can be a powerful tool in connecting the organizations leading this fight. The more people that have access to reading tools, project ideas, and resources, the further we will go in combating this problem.
For more information about the site go to: google.com/literacy
For more information about the site go to: PlanetRead.org
In honor of World Book Day, PlanetRead and its partner, BookBox, would like you to download its innovative AniBook for children, available in many languages: BookBox.com