Jharkhand - Language Enrichment and Application (J-LEAP) 2024-25

About the Program

The Jharkhand Language Enrichment and Application (J-LEAP) program is a collaborative initiative between IT for Change (ITfC) and Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CINI) aimed at improving language competencies among children attending Anganwadi centers (AWC) in Jharkhand. The program focuses on leveraging digital story-based pedagogies to enhance listening comprehension and creative expression skills, particularly in children's mother tongues and regional languages. This proposal outlines a pilot project to be implemented from December 2024 to March 2025, which will provide deeper understanding for future expansion, covering additional geographies, levels and languages.

Program Objectives

1. Strengthen language pedagogies to improve language proficiency of children attending select AWC in Jharkhand
2. Support children's language acquisition through the use of story-based pedagogies integrating relevant digital methodologies.
3. Enhance CINI team members' capacities to create and utilize contextual digital resources.
4. Help CINI team members experience and internalize technology integration, strengthening their technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge.
5. Create an Open Educational Resource (OER) repository for easy and universal access to developed resources.

Pre-recording Groundwork Workshop

The Pre-recording Groundwork Workshop was conducted on 11th January 2025 and focused on briefly introducing the program, identification of suitable stories in Hindi, translation of stories into Mundari, and review of selected/translated stories. This online interaction will included around 21 CINI resource persons (and possibly select AWC employees) and the IT for Change team. The detailed workshop agenda and the related resources are available here.

Story Narration and Recording Workshop

The Story Narration and Recording Workshop was conducted from 17th-19th February 2025. This in-person workshop included review of the selected stories, review of story translations, techniques to make storytelling more engaging, as well as the recording and review processes. The workshop was conducted in Ranchi, Jharkhand with 10 Mundari-speaking CINI resource persons as well as the facilitators from IT for Change, to record stories in Mundari language.

The detailed workshop agenda and the related resources are available here.

Story Editing and Production Workshop

The Story Editing and Production Workshop is to be conducted from 17th to 21st March 2025. This in-person workshop includes review of the recorded stories, and training of CINI resource persons on how to use FOSS tool for editing the audio-stories. The workshop will be conducted in Khunti, Jharkhand with 10 Mundari-speaking CInI resource persons (same RPs as the previous Story Narration and Recording Workshop)as well as the facilitators from IT for Change.

The detailed workshop agenda and the related resources are available here.

Program Resources

1. Various Mundari language resources , including stories in Mundari, Mundari-Hindi, a Mundari-Hindi-English dictionary. Requires registration. This is the website of the Central Institute of Indian Languages.
2. A Mundari English Dictionary, By Manindra Bhusan Bhaduri. Publisher: Gyan Publishing House. The authoritative dictionary. Available in most E-Commerce stores.
3. An Online Mundari <-> English Dictionary. Limited vocabulary uploaded so far. It seems to be based on the above publication. Community-contribution.
4. Two YouTube channels that include basic Mundari learning videos MUNDARIETUN and NamrataAind.