Hi friends – we’ve turned SIX this 1st June and thanks to all the good wishes and support from people like you, what an exhilarating experience it’s been. What started of with 35 kids and 17 books now caters to more than 120 children and has more than 1500 books, toys & games!
The summer months are always very busy and full of activity. We have more time and since the weather is better, children from far off also attend the library. We also have many kids who visit the villages during the summer holidays – so it’s more than house full. We have had upwards of 120 young people attend the library and tuitions on a daily basis.
So here are some details of what’s been happening here
Some activities during the quarter
Tuitions –
With the children consistently getting good positions in their schools, these have become a major attraction for children, especially those from far off villages during the summer. As a result, we have to increase the number of teachers and also develop newer locations to conduct classes.
While almost 30 boys and girls from Class 9 – 12 attend in an exclusive slot of two hours per day, about 60-70 from Class 3 – 8 come in the evenings. Kripal sir & Vijay continue to be a great help to us. Bhawana, who used to earlier assist with smaller kids, now handles the computer classes. We have also engaged more teachers from the area to help out with the increased load.
Library outreach – Seeing the impact of our involvement in the Primary School at Darmadi (we’d seconded Bhawana as a teaching assistant since February), we have now been able to add another two Govt Primary Schools at Siltona and Nauna to this programme. Though this initiative is now closed due to the summer holidays, we hope to activate it again in July/August.
Outreach activities at Darmadi and Siltona
Workshops –
Theatre and Dance Workshop – These workshops continued in full swing during April and May with regular sessions to prepare two plays and two group-dance items for the annual day celebrations.
The children have shown a great deal of dedication and commitment and have developed a lot of self confidence and poise.
Music workshop – Varun, a new acquaintance from Chennai, spent a week (12 – 19 May) exploring his possible future involvement with us. He is a trained vocalist and dramatist and works with children from various schools. He taught the kids songs in different languages and introduced some of them to songs of kabir. The children have picked up very well and performed on the annual day.
Varun conducts the music workshop
Annual day celebrations – the highlight of the quarter has been the Annual Day function on 4th June. It was imperative that the milestone be celebrated with gusto since due to the pandemic the celebrations had been very subdued for the past two years.
The invite
T-shirts with the library logo were procured for all the children and they prepared a two hour long variety programme showcasing their theatre, dance & musical prowess. Abhilasha and Himanshu, two students who had completed their Class 12 this year and have been associated with the library since it started, conducted the ceremonies. More than 250 parents & community members and visitors attended the function and encouraged the children wholeheartedly.
Prizes were also given to meritorious students for their academic performance in the recently conducted final exams.
The function concluded with the distribution of sweets for the visitors, guests and the children. The outstation invitees were all praise for the performances put up and the confidence displayed by the children.
The performances during the Annual Day function and a view of the audience
Documentary on Happy Children’s Library – Paras, a documentary maker from Jeolikote and his wife Shruti had visited the library on an earlier occasion. They found it to be a suitable subject for a documentary and have since been interacting with the children and attending the various activities while putting together the required footage. We hope to have a professionally made film on HCL shortly and will share the link with readers as and when it is available.
Additional activity space – The multifold increase in the children attending the library called for immediate action. A portion of the vegetable garden was converted to an open space around the walnut tree using locally sourced materials. The ‘akhrot courtyard” has now become a favoured spot!
“Akhrot courtyard” in full use
Visitors –
Dr. Shekhar Pathak and team – The well known historian, author and environmentalist and his group paid us a visit on 28th April. We were overwhelmed by the down-to-earth and vast experiences that they shared with us all. They were extremely happy to see how the children were shaping up and have assured us of assistance in the form of volunteers and resource persons to educate the children on the culture and environment of our state. We hope to have more such interactions with Dr Pathak and other such eminent personalities in the future.
Children from Araria, North Bihar – a group of 15 children and their mentors from Musmat Budhia Shiksha Nirman Sangathan (MBSNS) visited us on 14 Apr. This organization works in north Bihar and had brought their children on an exposure visit to Jeolikote. They took time to visit the library and interacted with some of our kids. It was a very good exposure for both the groups to understand the differences in the schools, lifestyles and environment of the respective states. The children were divided into mixed groups and each group presented their understanding of the villages and environment of Bihar and Uttarakhand in an integrated way through drawings and sketches.
We were very happy that such sort of varied interaction opens the minds of the children as well as us mentors.
Village visit and group activities
Library becomes a model ! – The successful conduct of the library, its activities and the growing number of children attending daily has made it a model community space. In the recent past a number of people have visited and tried to understand the working and the systems that we have used in order to see how they can adapt it to spread such an initiative in their areas.
Library at Suryagoan – Prachi & Sai, the ”chocolate couple”, were very keen on replicating our model in their village at Suryagoan, near Sattal. They came over to learn more about the setup and some our older kids helped select books from the library that they’d read and re-read and packed them up for the new library. It was touching to see the note they penned for the children at Suryagaon – wishing them well and hoping that they enjoyed those books as much as they had enjoyed reading them. We wish them all the best and hope this new initiative takes off successfully.
B2R – a rural BPO operating in a number of locations in Nainital District and Kausani is very keen to use this library model to improve their community engagement. Their team visited the library on 9th June to see it in action and understand the issues involved. They have decided to start a library at one of their centers shortly.
Team B2R interacts with the children
Interns & Volunteers-
Supriya, a young geologist and budding environmentalist, joined us on 04 April and Riya, who works on philosophy with children came on 10th April. They worked in their respective areas with some children and helped out in the library outreach. Unfortunately, due to their educational commitments they had to cut short their planned stay. We wish them well for their journey ahead.
Sonal, a very talented young lady who works at Pratham, has been with us since mid June. She has interests in science, dance and the environment. Her wide ranging skills are being put to very effective use and the children are learning origami, environmental science, dance and video production, in addition to photography and bird watching! We hope she is able to spend as much time as possible to impart more knowledge to the kids.
Sonal’s students in the village and at the library
Vishwaraj , who had visited us in 2019 and had been inspired by his experiences here to set up a similar library in Darbhanga (see details here). He again came over in the end of the quarter. He and a friend, Mancy, have taught the children madhubani style paintings illustrating folktales of Uttarakhand and kathak dance.
The workshop ended with the parents being invited to see the work done by the children during the 10 day workshop.
VTC- The Khili Buransh SHG is getting bigger! The group got together with Tautik to train another 15 young girls and women from 8 different villages over two months. The SHG members took turns in imparting the training, thus further upskilling themselves.
Some of the graduating participants would be joining the SHG while others have decided to take up sewing in their own villages. We hope to monitor their progress in the coming months and handhold them where required.
In the meanwhile the group continues working hard procedssing orders and have increased their earnings. They are now handling their affairs independently.
Their new catalogue has been quite a hit! Readers may like to see it at https://issuu.com/tautik/docs/catalog-khili_buransh-april2022 and place orders.
Board Results – The results of Class 10 and 12 candidates from the library have been very good with all but one passing with good marks and 7 of them getting distinction. Mahi topped her school with 90.60% in Class 10 while Gaurav and Rakesh followed her with 86.80% and 84%. Abhilasha and Himanshu got distinction in Class 12.These results are exceptional considering the closure of schools for nearly two years.
Some of the students are giving entrance examinations for professional education. We hope to be able to at least part fund the higher education of the successful ones.
There’s never a free lunch at Seem, so relatives & friends are roped in to contribute with their skills
That’s all for now – Goodbye!
Great work 🙏