In
the period April 2011 to December 2012, various children's rural
library activities were carried out in some villages of Karnataka 's
Bellary and Dharwad districts.
Each library over 1,700 books in English and Kannada, covering a wide variety of genres including fiction, non-fiction and reference books. The books are graded and color as per the reading capacities of the children using GROW BY READING standards. The books are issued to readers/children as per their grade and are facilitated to graduate to higher grades.
All
the libraries that have been started are working well and slowly
succeeding in seeking the attention of the children. Nearly 30-40
children have become members in each library. Children of these rural
libraries are participating very actively and showing improvement in
their reading capacity and other non-curricular activities. Parents
of these children are appreciating this kind of library.
These
libraries are functioning about 2-3 days in a week. Once in three
months, these libraries are updating the reports and recording the
reading level of each student.
As revealed in the attached account statement,
Frequently, teammates of CRT visits these libraries to get an
understanding of the implementation of the libraries and the feedback
that we have received is that the libraries have geared up their
functioning and are attracting more children to the libraries.
Child
Rights Trust with the coordination and cooperation of its networking
NGO friends such as KIDS, BIRDS, Sneha, READS, DON BOSCO, Seeds and
CARDS has successfully finished its one year of smooth functioning
of Children's libraries in these districts. The concept of children's
library “by
the children, for the children, with the children”
has made a mark in the communities of Dharwad and Bellary districts
of Karnataka. We have found such enthusiasm from local donors and
children, that some of the expenses have been borne by them and we
have had savings in the expenditures budgeted originally as part of
this project. Also, one school has been inspired by our open library
in the area to allow its children free access to its library, as
against the usual rigid closed school library.
Against
this background, children had gathered on 15th July 2012 at
Ananthashayana Gudi, Hospet in order to share their experience and
opinions. Sixty five children were present from ten different
libraries (five children from each library).
CRT
is getting feedback that other NGOs are interested to initiate and
implement Rural children's Library in their working areas. Another
donor has funded CRT to initiate some in Chamrajanagar district,
where we are working along with Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and some
local NGOs.So we would like to initiate some more libraries in other
districts
A
sense of what Rural Children''s Libraries are about can be seen by
the video showcasing our award winning Chaglatti Library on Youtube
[search for Chaglatti].
We
are looking forward to more support to extend our project in the days
to come.
