AXIS Bank M V Foundation Library Project, Nalgonda District

Half Yearly Report, April 2008

M V Foundation signed a project with AXIS Bank with the following objectives: Purpose of project To ensure that all children in classes 1 to 5 in the selected mandals of Nalgonda District attend school and learn. To also ensure that this process of learning is enjoyable and informative.

Overall objective To empower primary schools (classes 1 to 5) in the project area in terms of enriching the curriculum, the learning levels and an overall improvement of the extracurricular activities.

Specific objectives 1. To develop the primary school into a proper learning centre i.e. based on the principles as enshrined in the national curriculum framework designed by the NCERT. 2. To monitor the learning levels of every child and evolve appropriate responses through teachers, schools and their actions for helping children learn. 3. To encourage extracurricular activities such as sports, games, music, library and so on.

This project is to be implemented in 96 Government Primary Schools in 4 mandals of Nalgonda district (Atmakur, Tungathurthi, Munagala and Thirumalgiri mandals) over a period of 3 years (2007-2010). Establishing school libraries and building activities around it is one part of the above project. In September 2007 there were discussions between M V Foundation and Manchi Pustakam regarding facilitating the library component of the above project. Based on these discussions a ToR was signed by the two organizations.

As per this ToR Manchi Pustakam would facilitate selection of books, establishing and running the activities around the library. For this P Bhagyalakshmi would give on an

average 5 days of time every month. The Contact person for the project from M V Foundation is Mr. E. Venkatesh, District Coordinator, Nalgonda. Rajendra Prasad, State Coordinator will coordinate from the M V Foundation, Hyderabad. A Project Advisory Committee consisting of K. Suresh and P. Bhagyalakshmi from Manchi Pustakam and Venkat Reddy, Rajendra Prasad, Venkatesh and Pothana Sastry (Finance Coordinator) from M V Foundation was formed which will have half yearly review meetings in Hyderabad.

This is the brief activity report for the first six months.

Preliminary visit, orientation and follow-up with the Volunteers: Bhagyalakshmi made a preliminary visit to Suryapet on 22nd September, 2007 to meet with the district team, teachers and village volunteers to have exchange of ideas and to have the picture of ground reality. The existing books in the school libraries and their usage were discussed. On 30th October, 2007 Bhagya visited the Government Primary Schools surrounding Suryapet (Old Suryapet, Nemmikallu, Enubamula, Kandagatla, etc.) along with Venkatesh and others. The team took with them some story books to assess both the interest in the books and the capacities of the children in classes 3rd to the 5th. The children were given books according to the standard of the class and were asked to read them. It was observed that the children of the fourth and fifth classes could read with comfort the books one grade below to their standard. They could also follow the story. However, when books of their class standard were given some children faced difficulty in both reading and comprehension. They were slow in reading such books and needed explanation to understand the content. Children of class three liked the books with big illustrations and bigger font size books with few lines per page. Most of them showed interest in seeing the pictures and turning the book.

Ravi, Ranadheer and Bhagya formed a field team with District Coordinator Venkatesh, respective mandal organizers and volunteers joining in as per their convenience.

When the first set of books was supplied orientation was given to the volunteers along with a note on how to set up the library by giving the accession number and seal on the books. They were also oriented about how to use the books and build activities around the library. Initially it was decided that Class 1 to 3 children will read the books in the library itself, while the elder children were permitted to take books to the home. Read aloud activities were encouraged in the library.

Several visits were made to organize the books. Visits were made to the schools also to have feedback from the children and school teachers about the programme. For example school children of Old Suryapet requested books like Alibaba and the 40 thieves, Vikram Betal, Allauddin and the Magic Lamp. Children of other schools wanted mythological books such as Dasavataralu, Hanuman, Prahlad, Sibi Chakravarthy, and epics such as Ramayanam and Mahabharatam. According to these interactions books in further rounds were selected.

Selection of books and supply: Books were selected keeping in view the objectives and the standard of the children in the schools. Books from Manchi Pustakam, Jana Vignana Vedika, Childrens Book Trust, National Book Trust, Hyderabad Book Trust, Peacock Classics, Ramakrishna Math, Prajasakthi Book House, Visalandhra Publications, Navarathna, etc were procured and supplied. However, instead of two installments as thought in the agreement, the books were supplied in several lots. Until March 2008 each school was supplied with 302 books worth approximately Rs. 6500. At one time the volunteers were overwhelmed with both the quantity and quality of the books that were supplied. Thus at one point of time the supply of books was slowed down.

As per the agreement two sets of reference library is also being established at Manchi Pustakam and M V F Office in Suryapet. This has presently about 400 books worth around Rs.7500. This will be further strengthened in due course to reflect the books available in the market with various publishers.

Setting up of the library: The books selected for the project were classified according to the subject and age group. The broad classification is as follows:

I.

Story Books 1. History 2. Mythology 3. Panchatantra 4. Folk tales 5. Folk tales of other countries 6. Historical

II. III.

Songs Language related 1. Proverbs 2. Riddles 3. Language

IV. V.

Activity Books Science Books 1. Environmental science 2. Other science books

VI.

Social science 1. Geography 2. History

Each subject was again classified as Sishu, Bal and Kishore as per the suitability to the age groups.

Instead of the Accession register files are being maintained at each library. This has reduced redundant work. Each selected book is given an accession number in a format, which has the details of the title, author, subject code, year of publication, publisher, number of pages, price, etc. These sheets are Xeroxed and filed with each library. Thus the accession number is the same across all the libraries. Each book is stamped with the

Project library seal on three pages of the book and the accession number is written down on all these three pages.

Supply of books in small installments helped both the volunteers and the children to get to know the books in detail. They were constantly reminded that they would be getting the books continuously and they were prepared for new books. Also they wanted to read the books that were already supplied so that they can take on the new books once they are received.

The first set of books was given in the month of November, 2007. During this month the children were encouraged to take the books and return them in the school itself. The choice of books for reading was entirely left to the children from the beginning. This helped the children judge their level and select books accordingly. Initially, when they took books of higher standard then theirs they would return it after reading/ going through some pages. If the book is of lesser level then they would read out/ tell the story to the younger children.

The books were kept in the office room of the schools. The schools in some places provided trunk boxes for safe keeping of the books. In some villages the community donated money for purchase of almyrahs. In few other instances the villagers and M V Foundation shared the cost of storage facility.

While taking care of books is essential so that the book can be used by several readers, emphasis was on getting a book and reading it. An issue register is maintained in each of the library and the system of taking and returning the books has been established. Every child has a page for him/ her in the issue register. Thus, the books issued out by a child could be assessed with the help of this register.

Issue of books to home for the children of class three to five started from the month of December, 2007. This activity of taking the books home, reading and returning it increased enthusiasm in the children and instilled confidence in them.

The books have to be seen from two aspects: The first is the story. Some children get caught with a particular book and are enamoured by it. They love the book; they kind of get possessed with it and live it. To encourage this and let each child discover their story children should be exposed to large number of story books. The stories should be told to them, and read out to them. When children start reading books then an entire new world gets opened up for them.

The second aspect is the language. This is a very tricky issue. Every child should be able to find a book that he/ she can read and at the same time feel challenged by it (from the language point). The vocabulary standard, number of words in a book/ page, the font size - come into play in this aspect. Ideally the child should be familiar with the language and have new vocabulary to learn from each book. This issue becomes further complicated when regional dialects get involved, particularly in the case of tribal hamlets.

Story collection: As part of the library activity children were encouraged to write stories and draw pictures. While books create interest and develop the skills in writing, this activity increases the need for writing and encourages them to acquire necessary skills. While talking, story telling are part of oral communication, reading and writing are part of written communication. For the first generation readers, which is the case with most of the children in the schools where the library project is taken up, it is very important to provide as many opportunities as possible to promote this.

The children in the project schools were asked to write stories and draw pictures. Several children participated in this event. It was thought that this event would be made noncompetitive. About 200 stories were collected in all. While some stories were copied from the books the children read, some rewrote the stories in their own narrative style. Some children wrote local folk tales/ stories that were told to them by the elders in the family/ neighbourhood. Incomplete stories and copied stories were rejected and out of the remaining about 30 stories were selected. Ravi, Ranadheer and Bhagya did the screening

of the stories. These stories and selected pictures would be part of news letter and/ or books that are being planned.

School library creates interest among others: Though the library project was meant for primary level school children, it was observed that youth also started showing interest in this activity. This reveals the dearth of reading material for the young and the old alike in the rural villages. Parents of the children started encouraging the children to read books and are sometimes asking for specific books. One parent who has read books only in his childhood days read the book brought home by the child and he was very happy that he could read one entire book now. Another parent had a doubt whether Lakshman in Ramayanam is married; he asked his child to get the book and was happy that he could clarify his doubt. There is a demand for the villagers to provide reading material for adults also as part of the school library. Keeping these developments in view it is planned that some books would be provided for youth readers also.

Other activities: In the month of January 2008 a two day workshop was conducted on English language and mathematics for the benefit of the volunteers. About thirty members participated in this workshop. Ms. Madhavi and Bhagyalakshmi were the resource persons in this workshop. This was a preliminary workshop in which new and innovative play way methods for teaching the above subjects to the children were shared. Similar workshops are being planned in future to increase the skills of the volunteers.

Future plans: During the course of interactions with the volunteers it was observed that some of them need lot of inputs to increase their skills in both reading and writing. A one day workshop in each mandal headquarters is planned for during the month of May 2008.

P. Bhagyalakshmi Honorary Coordinator Manchi Pustakam