Billion Readers (BIRD) ensures daily & lifelong reading practice a for billion Indians by adding Same Language Subtitling (SLS) on mainstream entertainment like Bollywood movies, serials and cartoons! By sliding reading into something that girls & women already do - watch TV regularly throughout their lives, reading becomes joyful, fun and engaging. Every girl in every village in India is transformed into a fluent reader unlocking unimaginable possibilities of dignity, skill, and empowerment.
Of the one billion "literates" in India, 600 million Indians are weak readers who cannot read simple texts. Six out of 10 weak and non-readers are girls & women. For Girls & Women, reading is not just a matter of skill but of dignity and agency. The assault on women's agency is compounded by patriarchy, caste, geography and oppressive social structures. A weak-reading woman is not able (or willing) to leverage resources to fulfil her aspirations due to lack of trust in her capabilities.
A billion Indians watch nearly four hours of TV every day. Girls & Women watch more TV on average than boys and men. Leveraging this reality, BIRD aims to ensure daily and lifelong reading practice for a billion Indians by adding SLS on existing mainstream entertainment content on television and streaming platforms. Simply put, SLS is the idea of subtitling audio-visual (AV) content in the 'same' language as the audio.
A fluently reading girls population will unlock unimaginable possibilities of dignity, skill, and empowerment with an enhanced self-efficacy, self-worth, self-confidence. They will attain the freedom to exercise their agency at the individual, family, community, and leadership levels. They will have greater access to information through newspapers, television, books, financial and health matters that impact their lives directly.
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