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Mitra Library to go Solar

Education is at the core of Mitra’s work. Literacy is, therefore, one of the main thrusts of our program development.

In July 2008, a pilot library project was initiated at a government run primary school in the Warli hamlet of Jarlipada in Dahanu.

Mitra Library was started to help inculcate and encourage reading habits among children who never had the opportunity to read anything more than their school text books.

This co-ed school consists of 150 students in classes up to 7th standard. Our senior Mitra, Mr. Shashikant Kale , a retired senior citizen of Dahanu, in consultation with the school teachers, built up a list of extracurricular reading material suitable for the children.

The Mitra library was inaugurated with 250 carefully selected books in Marathi and Hindi along with stationery and art & craft material. The Library was soon expanded by 60 books, sourced online from Tulika publishers. These delightful, beautifully illustrated books included Marathi-English and Hindi-English bilingual ones thus fulfilling the teachers’ desire to improve the children’s English reading and learning skills.

The school donated a cupboard to store the educational material and designated special library time into their daily school schedule. The teachers have set up a system to monitor the reading habits of the students along with their reading preferences. This information will enable us to understand the children’s needs and likes which in turn will help improve the existing and future Mitra libraries.

Within three months of initiating the library, the teachers have reported a significant progress among the children, who are enjoying reading time along with the opportunity of being creative in arts and crafts.

Mitra Foundation would like to thank Mr. Kale and the teachers of Jharlipada school for devoting their time for this project with such enthusiasm.

Following the success of our first library, Mitra Foundation is now working on a project of expanding the library programme to more hamlets in Dahanu.

As most of these hamlets do not have access to electricity, Mitra foundation will provide solar lighting to allow students to use the library after dusk .

For more information and donations for the Mitra Solar Library project, write to mitra.energy@gmail.com