PlanetRead Charity
More About PlanetRead
Boasting 600+ million literate citizens, India still has a huge population of early literates, close to about 300 million people who can barely read. PlanetRead in association with IIM Ahmedabad has come up with the solution for this literacy issue. The Same Language Subtitling (SLS) is aimed at helping the early literates transition into speakers with fluency and control over the language.
For more info, log on to https://www.planetread.org/
The idea is to essentially subtitle the lyrics of songs in videos in the language they're sung. For example, a Hindi song will have Hindi subtitles, a Bengali song will have Bengali subtitles and so on. The viewer will then read the subtitles as the song progresses. The subtitles will change color signifying the part of that is being sung then. Studies show SLS has significantly improved the reading ability of the users. In fact, according to the stats, over the course of twenty years, over 150 million Indians have taken up SLS as a way to improve their reading ability.
The SLS program is known for being cost-effective, as 1 USD can fund yearly reading practice for 5000 people. PlanetRead and SLS have big names like Doordarshan as their partners with organizations like All Children Reading (USAID), Google Foundation, Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Development Marketplace (World Bank), DELL Giving, Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, Library of Congress and Oracle. You too can help in solving the literacy problem of India by donating to the cause. You can choose from donation amounts starting from 5 USD to 100 USD and make a difference!