A Library for a Home

As soon as children enter the make-shift library, they begin to jump up and down with joy chanting “Bookwalli didi aayi! Bookwalli didi aayi!” (The lady with the books is here!). Right from the doorway they begin to crane their necks to spot their favourite books, trying to get to them before another child can beat them to it. This is a commonplace scene in a children’s home in Mumbai. Children as young as 5 live in this home because they have been orphaned, abused, abandoned or have experienced other kinds of trauma or exploitation. 

When families are unable or unfit to care for children, as ascertained by the Child Welfare Committee (a government body), children are declared as ‘Children in Need of Care and Protection’ and are sent to children’s homes. According to a September 2018 report released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India has 3,70,227 Children in Need of Care and Protection. Children’s homes are residential institutions caring for children (ages 0-18), responsible for fulfilling all their physical and emotional needs. While institutions do their best, the reality is that they are overburdened and under-resourced. As a result they are forced to rely on group monitoring and supervision to ensure the safety of their children. This impacts the everyday life of children, forcing them to navigate a structured life in which not only do they have to manage many tasks independently, they also have to vie for the attention of a caregiver or teacher, and their individual identity is often subsumed by the collective identity of being children of children’s homes. Their world is circumscribed by the parameters of the Home – they rarely see people from outside because often, both school and home are on the same premises.

In this context, libraries offer free and unstructured spaces that allow children to express, explore and exercise choices- a counter to the more structured nature of children’s homes. Libraries within these institutions offer children the opportunity to understand, question and dialogue, in safe settings. Children learn to develop their own preferences. As children discuss books and stories they are able to express their thoughts and feelings and discover their voices. Books enable children to escape the walls of the institution and connect with the larger world.   

(Free Reading Time, Adhvan)

Since children enter homes at different points in time, many of them have strong memories of life in their families. Often children connect stories to their own lives. While one child suddenly remembers his pet cat that lived with him and his family, when he listens to the story “Where is Amma?”, another child interprets all maternal figures in stories as maushi, one she associates with caring responsibilities.

Children come into the home from different regions at different life stages, their ability to read and write Marathi, Hindi or English is low – the three languages taught or used as a medium of instruction in schools in Mumbai. Many of these children have received poor education or have never experienced formal schooling. Learning in a language that is unfamiliar makes it difficult for them to keep up with the academic requirements of their schools. Libraries offer a supportive environment to children for language development where they learn at their own pace in a more relaxed and pleasurable setting. 

However, a room full of books doesn’t a library make… For a child to truly want to engage with the library and to benefit from the experience, a compassionate library mentor is essential. Many of the children living in children’s homes are first generation school goers, who have had a limited exposure to printed texts – a mandatory literacy practice in schools. They need to be gently welcomed into the world of books. Children need someone who is not only a bridge between them and books but is also a mentor who can help them begin their journey as readers.

(Free Reading Time with Facilitator  Annu Gupta, Adhvan)

The unique context in which these children live, makes the engagement with books extra special. Books act as springboards from which a myriad conversations arise. Children connect stories with their lives, recounting memories of life at home, sharing instances at the institutions. For Sharon, the stories that children share are the ones she carries with her. Sharon Raphael, now a Co-President at Bookwallah (https://www.bookwallah.org/), an organisation that sets up libraries and reading programmes in children’s homes, began her journey as a library volunteer.  She knew that the stories that children shared with her mattered the most. She felt that children needed someone to listen to them, acknowledge their stories and to show that they cared. The relationship that was built over books and stories was an essential component of the library. 

(Facilitator Sharon Raphael)

(Bookwallah Volunteers at Snehasadan, a children’s home in Mumbai)

Aarti Srinivasan’s journey into children’s homes began as a Pratham Book Champion. She began conducting reading sessions at one of the children’s homes in Mumbai and over the next 6 years continued to support libraries in 3 children’s homes in Mumbai. “I often felt like I was going to their home, ”says Aarti. Unlike in a school or similar setting where children come for some time and leave, she felt she was actually engaging with them in their own home. The children were inviting her in, making the relationship extra special. Aarti knew how much the interaction over books and stories meant to the children, when they would voluntarily give up their Sunday cartoon hour and come and sit for storytelling instead. Every time Aarti went to a children’s home to conduct library sessions she felt that a three way relationship was built between the book, the child and her. Their relationship began over books and extended to a much deeper emotional connection that was strengthened through conversations around books. Through books, many difficult ideas and themes opened up in very natural ways as children found resonance with their personal dilemmas. It opened up space for exploring larger constructs such as gender and power. 

Children’s homes are run in accordance with the guidelines of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 which clearly stipulates that institutions are responsible for promoting well-being, facilitating development of identity and providing an inclusive and enabling environment, to reduce vulnerabilities of children. However, this is much easier said than done. 

Libraries can offer children a joyful space to be creative, to better understand their emotions and relationships, to discover who they are, a space that facilitates their language, motor, social and cognitive development. In my own experience of running libraries in children’s homes, through Adhvan, (www.adhvan.org) I have seen children open up as they start reading and talking about books. They begin by tentatively naming different characters or elements in the book and over time their confidence builds. They begin to express their views confidently; weaving complex stories around images, connecting stories to their lives and trying to ascribe reasons to the actions of the characters in their books. As time has gone by, the stories children weave around their artwork have also grown more complex. Recently I was reading out the story of “Gajpati Kulpati” to a group of 4 and 5 year olds. In the story the elephant had a cold and I was asking them ways in which the villagers could help him. One boy told me that the villagers should tickle him. This young boy had remembered another story from the same series that I had read out 6 months ago, “Gajpati Kulpati: Grrrkhadoom” in which the elephant’s stomach ache was solved by a good tickle fest. The ability of the child to remember and recall the earlier story, to recognize patterns in the plot and be able to apply a solution from a similar situation to another context proved to me the immense cognitive benefits of reading and listening to stories, reflecting their engagement with books.

(Facilitator Megha Dharnidharka)

According to a preschool teacher working in a children’s home in Mumbai, the impact of the library programme is clearly evident. Children recite poems learnt in the library, re-tell stories that have been read out to them and are more confident in their articulation and expression. From simply describing all feelings as good or bad, they are now able to differentiate between emotions articulating the nuances of how a character may be feeling.

Over the last 6 years, Aarti Srinivasan has observed her children grow as readers. Through continuous engagement with the library, children have begun to show growth in their reading choice, and their curiosity and desire to understand people and the world has increased. Initially children would only ask Aarti for books on familiar characters, now they request her to bring in different genres and themes. Libraries create an informal learning environment that can play a supportive role in the social and emotional development of children. By providing a space that allows children to make decisions for themselves about their reading preferences, libraries accord children, who may not have enough freedom in exercising choice elsewhere, agency to decide how and what they want to learn. Every child deserves to have access to a vibrant library to open up the joyous world of books and reading, and so every children’s home must have a library.