Providing the tiny tots their own Room to Read

“Good m-o-r-n-i-n-g, Ma-a-aam!” A rising intonation is what the ears are treated to the moment you walk into a classroom. The chorus is familiar: stretched, loud, shrill, warm —all at once and always a specialty of school kids, underprivileged or not. Schools are shut - winter holidays for the bachha party. Some though, the weaker kids, a less fortunate bunch who need extra classes have to trudge to school a couple of times a week to put in some more hours. At a eucalyptus-lined grey building that is a primary school in Delhi’s Andrews Ganj- run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) this is the lot that sits cross-legged on a rug-covered cement floor of a room that is a library.

Libraries in MCD schools are not a given. All don’t have them. And if they do, they’re badly maintained and thinly stocked. The books lie in a perpetually-locked steel almirah so kids can’t access them, can’t tear them and can’t read them.

Here’s where the Room to Read (RTR), a non-profit organisation steps in. It became an official charity in 2000, and travelled through South-East Asia before reaching India in 2003. Since then they have spread to nine states and thousands of schools, distributing books to children across the hinterland. RTR was dreamt up by a former Microsoft executive, John Wood, with a focus on literacy and gender equality through education.

Under RTR they take a local school under its wing for three years. They set up a library - somewhat unconventional since the kids here don’t have to be silent; it doubles up as an activity room with games, poetry and dance recitals. It’s evident by their squeals and the possessiveness with which they hang on to their little colourful books that the kids enjoy this space. It’s usually a room, stocked with bilingual books. Comics are still a bad word.

Books like Lombdi Ka Tofa (Gift of the Fox), Boond (Raindrop) and Banku Ek Chai Peene Wala Ghoda (Banku, a Tea-Drinking Horse) goes through a selection process to deem a book “child appropriate” before the kids and their imagination run riot.

Sadanand Rawat, principal of another MCD primary school says in the last 25 years he hasn’t seen school children this interested in reading and winning poetry competitions. He praised the NGO for the interest created, for the lagan jo jaag rahi hai.

Neha, a student of the MCD Andrew’s Ganj, a little thing of 8, with big, dark eyes and four siblings, whose favourite is the story of Gilahiri (Squirrel), says when she takes the books home, her siblings get excited and squabble over who gets to read first.

Purushottam Parasa, RTR’s state manager for schools in Andhra Pradesh says he’s seen a lot of change in the children they started - fluency being one of them.  “The kids are so excited to see books different from their curriculum - the colours and pictures attract them and it’s evident how much they enjoy learning.” Favourite (Telugu) books of the students in AP schools: Upayam (An Idea), Nenukuda (Me Too), and Chitteluka Pencil (Small Rat Pencil).

The kids with impoverished backgrounds and all are not just improving their reading skills, but are telling stories, making pictures, drawing, and writing stories. RTR also eradicates bleakness, doing up the place with chart paper cut-outs of birds and flowers and characters from the books. This helps a child’s latent talents to flourish.

Baby Hema, a 4th standard student at Kurnool Rural MPES Mamidalapadu School (a once flood-effected village), according her class teacher, was a slow student and irregular at school. But in the past few months Hema has improved her reading skills and begun to participate in school activities. Earlier she was shy and afraid to interact with friends and teachers. But after the exposure to books, she began coming first in class and is today a proud ‘class leader’.

Sunisha Ahuja, RTR’s country director says they “need about Rs12,000 per girl to fund her education for a year and about Rs2 lakh to fund a library of 1,000 books to support a school for 3 years”.

RTR’s funding is courtesy individuals, foundations, corporates and through our chapter members. “Our Chapter in Mumbai raised 15% of our 2011 annual budget,” says Ahuja. While the budget for 2011 was Rs30 crore, next year they are aiming at Rs34 crore that will spread the written word further.