PRATHAM, READ INDIA and TULIKA                

Pratham is a Mumbai-based NGO working to bring together local self-government with corporate and voluntary sectors in promoting primary education in India. At present, Pratham programmes reach out to over two and a half lakh children across the country. Read India is one among several initiatives launched by Pratham. In the first phase, it engaged in imparting reading and writing skills through a specially developed programme. In the next, it is focusing on ‘Reading to Learn, Libraries and Books’. Pratham units across the country have contacted small and large publishers to provide these books. Pratham has also formed an in-house publishing unit called Read India Books that is expected grow into an independent entity.
          The objective is to provide books to all children in its area of operation 
— 1 library for around 250 households, about one book per child — and to set up about 3,000 such libraries covering nearly 900,000 children. It also seeks to ensure that every ‘member’ of the library learns to read, comprehend and be inspired to 
read more.
          Early experience in many areas has shown that an encouraging 50 per cent of the children’s parents are willing to pay Rs 10 towards annual or semi-annual fees. This will go towards paying for the books and create possibilities of partial sustenance through local resources for a long time.
         Tulika's book, The Why-Why Girl, was chosen as the launch book of Pratham, for their nationwide Read India campaign. Along with nine other books, all published by Tulika, in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati, this was released simultaneously in six centres all over India on International Literacy Day, September 8, 2003.
          The collaboration between Tulika and Read India has been a fortuitous coming together providing the many community libraries run by Pratham with well-produced books in Indian languages, for children who otherwise may not have access to them. The Why-Why Girl, in fact, fits well into the overall theme, revolving as it does around Moyna, a young girl, whose persistent curiosity leads her to books which open up new worlds. Mahasweta Devi draws quite naturally from her own experience of working with tribals and giving tribal communities a voice. As she says, "In writing about Moyna, I have written about so many children."