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Saturday 1 August 2015

Lets put a book in every child's hand.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” - Jorge Luis Borges

At MANTRA, we have always believed that.
In today's world where information is abundant, it is the joy of reading that can be the best gift for our children. It was almost an year back, when in one of our partner schools, we designed a library. It was an experiment. We chose a classroom, painted its walls with beautiful colors & design and filled the shelves with lots of books. And then what followed was amazing. We never saw children so excited about their library hour before. Even after school hours, children started staying back to spend time in library reading. They had just discovered a new love - that of reading. They had just developed a new friendship - that of books. And for us, this was a Eureka moment.

It was during this time, when we were wondering how to setup libraries for children in all our partner schools that we came across the wonderful 'Library in a classroom' from Pratham Books. To test its effect, we purchased five sets of this 'Library in a classroom' and put them in one of our partner schools. Whoa, we were pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the effect, it produced on children. Sharath, a class 5 student - smiles and reveals his secret, "I love all the story books of my classroom library. Every week, we are allowed to take one book home. So, Vishnu and I exchange our books at home and thus every week we finish two books instead of one." Kulsum shares similar experience. She says, "I used to hate reading my Hindi textbook. But now, I like reading Hindi books. Every alternate week, I ask my teacher to issue one book in Hindi to me. The stories are very interesting and when I read them out to my Ammi, she understands it too."

Looking at these success stories, there was no way we could have missed participating in the 'Donate-a-book' initiative by Pratham Books. We are participating in the ‘Donate-a-book’ campaign by Pratham Books to provide books in 30 classrooms across 6 under-resourced schools. For every rupee you donate to our campaign "Lets Read Together", https://donateabook.org.in/campaign/26, Pratham will give books to our students.

Let us put a book in every child's hand. Donate now.
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/others/Donate-a-book-to-broaden-their-horizons/articleshow/47789168.cms

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