Bhubaneswar, March 13: An American couple, who have popularised fairy tales and stories with a female protagonist, is in town to meet children, parents and teachers.

Founders of a website, A Mighty Girl, which has attracted the interest of people from around the world, Carolyn Danckaert and Aaron Smith, aim to take back women-centric stories from the city.

This is their first visit to India, and they are here with the help of the US consulate-general. The duo took a tour to schools in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar.

Meeting kids at government and private schools in the city, Carolyn and Aaron explored the children's versions of women's empowerment in real life incidents.

Carolyn hails from the non-profit and advocacy sectors where she has worked for a number of organisations on issues, including women's rights, among others, while Aaron has spent most of his career using information technology to effect social change. "We have four nieces in both of our families and while telling stories to them, we realised there were not as many stories with the princess or the heroine playing the rescuer. It was always a male character doing that," said Aaron.

"That's when A Mighty Girl was born. We started listing resources of children's books with female protagonists for the US and mostly North America. But, the overwhelming response on our web page as well as our facebook page has made the concept global now," said Carolyn.

While books are the highlight, the site offers toys, clothing and music, too, all of them about empowering girls. Interestingly, they do not focus only on girls as readers though. "It has to be boys, too, who as men must grow up and learn to respect women," Carolyn said.

The couple visited Sai International School, Capital High School, students at KISS and Bakul Foundation, among other institutes in the city. They were glad to see that children at the more privileged schools as well as those hailing from not so privileged backgrounds were equally expressive and observed the brave acts of women around them.

"It was wonderful to see a boy at an international school speak with admiration about the maid of his neighbour's house save her money and gradually become an entrepreneur. Similarly, girls and boys at KISS saw heroes in their mothers, sisters and teachers," Aaron said. "There should be more writers from regional places to bring out such tales in children's literature," he said.