Management of India Libraries Means Shared Responsibility
One of the keys to Room to Read's model, and to our success to date, is that communities co-invest with us on all of our projects. Often this co-investment is performed by the adults in the community, in the form of land, labor, or materials. Adults are largely responsible for the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of the various projects, but as you will see in this story, children are motivated to play a role as well.
Room to Read India began partnering with government schools and other NGO's to establish libraries in 2003. Since then, over 570 libraries have been established through these partnerships - by the end of 2006, we will have competed nearly 1000! One of these libraries was established in the resettlement colony of Dakshinpuri, a lower class, very poor neighborhood in the south part of Delhi.
Dakshinpuri is a slum; it is characterized by overcrowding, poor ventilation, and poor hygiene and sanitation. The men of Dakshinpuri do not have permanent jobs, but instead work as day laborers, vegetable vendors, and mason workers. Most of the women are either housewives or work as domestic help in neighboring residential areas. Despite these conditions, or perhaps because of them, the community desperately wanted to provide their children with educational resources. Parents want their children to have exposure to a variety of reading materials, which will help build and sustain their reading habit and enrich their learning process.
In partnership with Mobile Crèches, a non-profit organization whose goal is to aid children of migrant workers, we established a library in the Dakshinpuri Community Center in December 2005. One of 5 rooms in the center, the library caters to students and to out of school children, with the other rooms used for non formal education classes for children. The library is open from 12 noon to 4:00 pm during the week, and during summer vacation the library is open the entire day. Currently approximately 90 children access the 200 plus books that are available.
As you enter the library, a colorful ambience welcomes you. The bright colored walls are further enhanced by colorful displays of children's work; Books are kept in the wooden almirahs or displayed on strings that line the walls. Materials such as paper, pen, pencils has been stacked in the cemented shelves for doing some activities with the children. Across this library room, one can also see some rules/ banners written by the children like "Please do not tear the books", "Books are our best friends", "Books remain quiet, and you also keep quiet".
In this library, a teacher oversees the library, but the children have started taking initiative for managing the library. The children decide what books to display, and have even begun forming a system around this. Pooja, one of the child representatives, said, "we need to change the display frequently so that children get to see what all books are available in the library and hence they can choose the new books easily." At the end of each day, children remove the books from the string display and put them back in the almirahs so that they do not get dusty.
Children have also begun covering the books and posters with plastic so that they do not get torn. They have a designated time when they repair the books.
This is a great example of the ownership that our partner communities assume after a project has been established. With the children performing many of the day to day operational tasks, the librarian can focus on implementing and conducting various activities with the children, such as storytelling, game playing and creative writing.
Room to Read will continue to support the Dakshinpuri Community Center for the next several years by providing new Hindi and English children's books annually, as well as by providing more librarian training.
