Hyderabad: Library movement in government schools

Hyderabad: A library is a treasure trove to be harnessed by students and all for gaining knowledge. But hardly any school can boast of a good library. A city-based organisation 'Food 4 Thought' has come up with an initiative to set up libraries in government schools with the help of old and donated books.

Established in 2015 by Madhavi Sharma, Srinivas Rao and Shefali, the NGO has set up 300 libraries across 22 states and 81 in cities including 22 in Hyderabad. The schools include Mandal Parishad Public School (MPPS), Hafeezpet MPPS, Anjai Nagar and many more.

Speaking to THI, Madhavi Sharma, co-founder, Food 4 Thought, said, "In this modern era, there is an alarming drop in reading habits in children. Reading is essential to gain knowledge and books provide food for thoughts and nourish the readers. Many government schools lack enough books to set up a library. With an aim to help students inculcate reading habits and gain knowledge, this NGO was established with headquarters in Banjara Hills."

n setting up libraries, she informed,"First, we select a government school and donate around 200 books to set up a library. We also give training on how to run libraries and motivate children to read books. Also, to boost their reading every six months we distribute some gifts. The books are in vernacular and English languages,"

"Initially, we collected books from friends and set up a library in a government school. Steadily, many like-minded people started donating books. Till today the foundation has collected nearly 96, 000 books and set 303 libraries. Across India, nearly 26,500 students from government schools are registered with the organisation, and in Hyderabad, nearly 2,500 students are registered," she said.

For donors, the NGO provides a login ID so that they can keep a track of donated books by the app Food4Thought. They can trace where their books are sent with the help of bar code on their books which are linked to the app.

The NGO is run by interested individual donors and recently we have approached various corporates to support us in this mission, added Madhavi.