Written by: Sabina DSilva, Ananya Agrawal, Vineesh Amin & Aditya Singh
Call-a-Kahaani @ 08061933186, a product incubated by Udhyam Learning Foundation’s Quality and Scale Lab, is a motivational audio-story platform built upon Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. The platform aims to increase agency in our learners to take charge of life, one story at a time! Born in the middle of the 2020 pandemic, we breathe ‘resilience’, serving young learners across India, for ages upto 24 with handpicked fun and engaging short stories, based on the real lives of entrepreneurs and achievers. We wish to build agency in children and youth across the country, taking advantage of India’s telecommunication network and its extensive reach which boasts 1179.49 million subscribers as of January 2021.
Watch our exclusive rap for #ApniBeatPar
‘#ApniBeatPar’ is a new campaign starting today, we would like to share with you! Given the pandemic blues, restrictions, an overdose of grim news and increasing uncertainty, our youth are feeling a sense of hopelessness, loss of control, with not many platforms to express themselves authentically. In such a situation, the audio-only experience of Call-a-Kahaani becomes even more relevant, as it leaves more room to imagine the road ahead and new ways of living. Leveraging the same, ‘#ApniBeatPar’ sets out to inspire youth with renewed hope, giving them a safe space to listen to and share their stories, empowering them to better thrive in this change by shaping their minds….how? Read on…
Each of our stories has a new rhythm, tempo, and a brand new interactive feature, an embedded ‘Heartbeat’! The ‘Heartbeat’ is a climax point at the heart of each story, where learners are encouraged to pause, reflect, and then make a choice on how the story might unfold, via a simple numeric input. This allows them to get a glimpse at the multiple paths accessible to each individual at any stage of life and understand the power of choices in shaping how our life’s story unfolds. After this, they also discover what the story’s protagonist behaves and compare their decision with what actually happens. After completing the story, the learners are nudged towards recording their own stories and challenges on what makes them tune in to the rhythm of their life, aka ‘#ApniBeatPar’.
Call-a-Kahaani encourages our youth to take control of their own decisions and be proud of their own pace, moulding their life story in their own unique way. We are very proud of having received over 22 thousand+ calls so far, with 35% caller retention. Our 40+ hit stories, in Hindi and English, have attracted 9000+ unique callers from 15+ states across India. The program was initiated in July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, and we have collected 100+ responses from learners on how they have been impacted by the platform.
Our listeners are mainly students from government schools or ITIs or are young individuals from civil service organizations. We have been supported by our content partners, Sociostory.org, Aate Baate Tales and Story Time, and our outreach partners- Those in Need, Slam out Loud, Udaan India, Sajhe Sapne, Teach for India, Alfaz e Mewat Community Radio and Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community.
For more information please email vineesh@udhyam.org
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