Kolkata: From Friday onwards, you will find a huge bus, attractively painted, doing the rounds of the slums between Park Circus and Tollygunge. Don't be surprised if you find the bus mobbed by kids, because that is what it is intended for. This will perhaps be the first-of-its-kind initiative to encourage the little ones in the slums to come on board, draw and paint and finally get drawn to books.
The project, christened 'Kalam Library on Wheels', is being started by city-based NGO 'Help Us to Help Them', which is funded by Together We Can, a corporate house-run foundation that works for underprivileged children. It is basically a mobile library, complete with bookshelves and activity corners. The library will start enrolling members from Friday onwards. The criteria to become a member are: the kid has to be between eight and 16 years of age and he/she should be a slum/pavement dweller.
The NGO got Srijan Pal Singh, an IIT engineer turned IIM-Ahmedabad management expert, to design the project. Right from the colour of the bus to the cartoons drawn all over it, Singh has planned everything. "The idea was to make it exciting so that children's curiosity is aroused. The unfortunate bit is that, underprivileged children grow up with a sense of rejection. Naturally, they are insecure. So we have to work towards winning their trust and to get them to come on board," Singh said.
There are at least 50,000 titles that the bus is stocking up. Children will also be provided with paper to draw and scribble on. Since the NGO runs free schools in different slums, teachers from these schools have been roped in to get kids started with storytelling sessions. Routine joyrides will also be organized. "The idea is to get children interested in books, which is not an easy task because they automatically tend to associate books with school and studies. Our aim is to create an urge for self study and inculcate in them the love for books because just as Kalam did, we also believe that this automatically aids literacy," said Mukti Gupta, chief of the NGO.
Bandhan Bank is partnering the project. Managing director of the bank, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, sounded happy. "Child literacy and primary education are two things that we need to focus on if India has to develop. It is sad that our libraries do not encourage slum children to enter their portals. So this thought of creating an exclusive library for them was welcome," Ghosh said.
