For Children, By Children

 A special story by the New Indian Express about Chagalatti Children's Library

Six kids barely in their teens started a library here about five years ago. The library that began with 200 books now has 4,200 books, and children from 15 surrounding villages trek up to it to make use of it. In 2010, Meghana, Shalini P V, Vedashree C K, Vanishree C K, Karthik N and Manasa were just kids, who used to gather at a house nearby along with their parents. Their parents used to go to the house to learn English among other things. The house belonged to the brothers Nagasimha Rao and Narasimha Prasad, who hit upon an idea. Nagasimha Rao, a noted child rights activist, says they gathered the children and started creating awareness about the rights of children and then hit upon the idea of a library.



Click below link to read the story
For Children, By Children

A library by the kids, for the kids

A child rights club initiated by CRT's associate director, Nagasimha.G.Rao, in 2006 has many success stories to share, the latest being a children's library run by it on their own.

This child rights club is in a village of 500 people called Chagaletti (fondly referred to by many as 'Chocolatey') that is 8 kms from the Bangalore International Airport.

The village has 90 children and the club has 30 children (20 girls and 10 boys) between the ages of 5-18 years.

The child rights club was started with the intention of spreading awareness on child rights and promoting child participation.

The most heartening facet of this has been the enthusiasm of the children and support from adults in the village. The children have taken up many activities and initiatives over the past three years to promote child rights like bringing drop-outs back to school, polio awareness drives, H1N1 awareness drives, mobilising funds for children affected by North Karnataka floods immediately after the disaster hit, monthly meetings etc.

With no library within 15 kms of the village, there was a great need for one to be set up. With the help of the Hippocampus Reading Foundation and Child Rights Trust, a library has been set up on 14th August, 2010.

The link to the article in Deccan Chronicle covering this can be accessed here.

Our hope is for this initiative to reach all children in rural Karnataka and that they all have access to the joy of reading and learning.

You are free to drop by at the Chagaletti library anytime. Do get in touch with us if you would like to support this venture or get more details.