Imagine a world where you grow up never having enough to read. This is the reality for many children who speak minority or indigenous languages (hereafter “underserved languages”). The scarcity of juvenile titles (fiction, non-fiction, videos, games, audio books, etc.) in their own languages is a persistent barrier to learning. We invite collaborators to a research group with the goal of building and expanding processes for creators—writers, editors, illustrators, and translators—who can benefit from networking and professional development and learning to use Creative Commons licensing and other OA policies and practices. We wish to amplify collaborative efforts by creators to increase available titles in underserved languages. Our central goals are to establish a design for a replicable, democratic, and participatory multilingual collaborative and to analyze the design process. We will share a pilot that we have conducted in 2026 with speakers of Yoruba and Burmese in Indiana, USA.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Participants will gain specific knowledge about the gaps in access to literacy and learning materials for learners who speak underserved languages around the world.
- Participants will learn about storytelling and story creation efforts in Indiana that we have begun with Yoruba and Burmese speakers.
- Participants will be invited to join scholarly and practical efforts to share practices and ideas for developing and providing juvenile titles in underserved languages in areas that are of concern to them.
