On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, celebrated annually on February 21, The Awaaz Initiative is organizing a week-long celebration from February 20 to 26, 2023 and seeking applications for the same.
About the Awaaz Initiative
The Awaaz Initiative seeks to exponentially increase the discourse around socio-legal issues in regional languages.
Awaaz is a platform for regional writers, editors, and readers to collaborate and share their stories, ideas, and experiences in their own language. It aims to bring these communities together as a collective. The community will be hosted on Youth Ki Awaaz and nourished by an ever-expanding network of partner organizations.
The reliance on mainstream Indian languages has led to invisibilization of stories and issues of communities speaking other languages. This has resulted in a lack of agency for these marginalized communities. Awaaz aims to give equal representation to these languages and stories in the national discourse to be heard and to ultimately imagine a nation where language is no barrier to speaking up.
Awaaz Initiative, which is being led by Youth Ki Awaaz, India’s largest media tech social enterprise, and supported by an expanding network of partner organizations,including Bar and Bench, Lawctopus, Manupatra, Nyaaya, and SCCOnline.
It will be curated by 12 fellows, one each for Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Assamese, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali.
About the International Mother Language Day Celebration
On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, celebrated annually on February 21, The Awaaz Initiative is organizing a week-long celebration from February 20 to 26, 2023.
During this week, we aim to publish a series of blogs in 12 Regional languages spoken across India, including Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, Kannada, Odia, Assamese, Marathi, and Gujarati.
The goal of Awaaz is to provide a platform for individuals across India to express themselves on issues that matter to them in a language they feel close to and comfortable with. This will help to increase discourse around social, political, and legal issues in regional languages and bring more stories and opinions to light.
What can you do to support Awaaz?
- Circulate the google form among your student community who would be interested in writing in any of the 12 languages.
- If you are part of a journal in a law university, you can celebrate International Mother Language Week by opening applications for writing in any of these languages and potentially publishing a separate edition in regional languages for your journal/blog.
- If you are a post-holder in the university, you can conduct events in regional languages, such as debate competitions, essay writing, lectures, and open discussions for committees, student groups or research centres.
- If you are a college professor, you can encourage students to write in regional languages and provide guidance and assistance.
- If you are a law student, you can write and contribute to the Awaaz community in your own language.
What can Awaaz provide?
- Your university/ organization name will be featured on Youth Ki Awaaz with a viewership of 4 million users per month as a participating entity.
- If you plan to host any of the pieces from our platform, we will happily republish the pieces along with the original link on your platform.
- Your logo will be included in the citation compendium prepared in 12 languages based on your support. You can also post this on your platform.
- You will receive recognition for your participation in the week from our partner organizations. We are committed to supporting you in any way we can to celebrate this important week.
