Libraries for Poor Children in India

I wish to thank a couple of anonymous donors, one of them a monthly contributor for their continued support in spite of the fact that it is not known when funds will be transferred from GlobalGiving to us. We hope that the significant amount of donations due to us will be transferred soon. We have not been doing any resource mobilization through GlobalGiving ever since the problem of transfer cropped up.

Governing Body of BREAD Society had its 103^rd Meeting at Hyderabad on 2^nd January 2020. It has taken the following decisions.

1. To increase the donation to setup a new library from Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 45,000 by increasing the Corpus for replenishing books from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 as interest rates have come down drastically from around 8% to about 6%,

2. To setup libraries in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs). Govt. of India has been establishing residential girls’ schools in backward Mandals where women’s literacy is lowest. Also, girls in KGBVs are either dropouts, single parent children, orphans or poor and economically more backward than regular govt. school students. And, being confined to hostels, not having any access to public libraries they read more books as compared to boys.

3. To setup libraries in Upper Primary schools. TATA Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Hyderabad after a field study of BREAD libraries had recommended that we should setup libraries in Primary schools. Selecting primary schools to setup libraries in an objective manner is not feasible. So, we have opted for UP schools, which also have primary classes.

4. To setup libraries in govt. girls’ high schools fulfilling NMMS norm.

5. To consider govt. schools with outstanding performance in NMMS test.

We have established 19 more new libraries adding up to 161 libraries setup during April 2019 to date as on 20^th February 2020. Thus, we have created access of books to over 72,000 underprivileged students during this year. We have exceeded the target to set up new libraries by nearly 20%.

We have also felicitated 378 headmasters and teachers responsible for the outstanding performance of students in National level Test and public examinations.