Australian embassy, NGO launch reading program for kids

The Australian High Commission, in collaboration with a Delhi based NGO, Katha, on Thursday, launched a programme to inculcate reading habits among underprivileged children in Delhi. The programme- 'I love reading' will be imparting education to young children by providing colourful books.

The Australian High Commission has undertaken an initiative called the Direct Aid Programme (DAP) with the objective to help people who are below the poverty line. The joint initiative by the High Commission and the Delhi based NGO aims to reach out to three million children and provide basic education to them. According to the officials, they are focusing primarily on various primary schools of India.

The NGO has printed and distributed culturally and gender sensitive reading books to the municipal schools and community libraries in Delhi and Rajasthan, because they believe such colourful books can attract more children towards education.

"We have a number of development objectives as a part of DAP. Education and literacy is one of the key objectives of the programme. The way this NGO is delivering literacy through a very unusual manner," said Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu.

As per the report published by UNESCO in September 2016, nearly 50 per cent of children in India are deprived of education. Statistics show that with an estimated 300 million children, only 150 million are fortunate enough to receive basic education.

"The objective of DAP is to maximize the impact in a particular field be it education or women empowerment. This organisation, we have been supporting for the last two three years have successfully delivered literacy to a million of students. We have an ambitious goal of reaching the remaining 150 million students in India," she added.