Tomoe Express - 4

Well-begun is half-done! 

Yes, it all started well and children are visiting the library everyday!😍

Our vision is to initiate children libraries in the villages around us. We thought we could afford doing one in a year and it is practically feasible to have a breathing space and also to learn from the first year's mistakes. However,

(1) the second village we had in our mind is within the radius of 5 km from our residence which has good number of children.💟

(2) right on the day of inauguration aachi's grandson willingly asked us if one could be opened in their village where a small space is readily available.💕

(3) the Universe is distracting our attention towards the Juvenile Home right from the day of inauguration in various forms. I find it unbelievable! We heard from authorities of the Home, random news on Juvenile Homes are seen, incidentally had to park our vehicle in front of the Home's gate exactly the night of the inauguration, and so on.💝

It is quite overwhelming. My husband and I have relaxed our decision of having one library in a year and are now open to start the next in a couple of months. But where do we do? Our intuition says to go for the Juvenile Home choice. Another thought says that a library elsewhere would prevent children ending up in such Homes. 

We are open to receiving your opinion/suggestion/advice on this! Trust me, they are valuable to us.

Do let us know, if you have any.👐

Cheers!

Tomoe Express - 3

All set!!! Space, books and other accessories! 

Also we managed to find two local young women in their early 20s to take care of the library everyday for a little remuneration every month! 

So, now... Do we need to arrange an event to open the library or just put it to use straight away?

After quite a lot of deliberations, we felt that if someone from the district administration agrees to inaugurate, the whole event would get some attention in the village leading to people trusting us and sending their children without any hesitation! It did not happen as the whole district administration was busy with Book Fair.

That's when we decided to bring in two different personalities to motivate children to use this library!

One, Perumaathaal Aachi, the senior-most Panchayat President of Tamil Nadu. She immediately agreed to come and inaugurate. Though she is always accompanied by one of her grandsons who is from a political party himself, he was not only cooperative but also did not show any sign of political influence. It made us feel good as we were clear about not having any religious, caste, political shades or the like. We decided to invite her as she proves to be a woman of strength and will power!! She truly is! And to receive blessings from an octogenarian is special anyday! 

                                 Perumaathaal aachi

The next person, Mrs. Pushpalata Pooranan, the Director and Correspondent of Pushpalata Schools, Tirunelveli. My husband knew her for years now on professional front and we both know that she did her best to government schools in and around Tirunelveli. She always gives a helping hand to economically not so sound government schools on their request. This brought us together and we wanted to have her with us in Tomoe Library for her wide interest in book reading and children! She happily agreed and lauded us for this effort.

                           Mrs. Pushpalata Pooranan

On the day of inauguration, a lady arrived and none of us knew her. she told us that she was invited by Mrs. Pushpalata. We waited for our guests and Pushpalata ma'am was on time and she introduced the lady to us as a story teller for children, Ms. Bhaagirathi. It was so thoughtful of her to bring her school's storyteller for children of this village on her own. They both gifted us a bundle of books!!! Mrs. Pushpalata wanted Ms. Bhaagirathi to hold a session for children but the other guest did not arrive. We then decided to go ahead with story telling while we kept waiting for aachi. One after the other, two hilarious stories were told and children thoroughly enjoyed. 

                             

                                      Storyteller, Ms. Bhaagirathi

As Mrs. Pushpalata is always conscious about time and she hinted us about the same, we got restless and decided to go ahead with ribbon-cutting. If this is going to be the case, what would aachi do??!!!! On the spot, some of our friends advised to make her light a traditional lamp. We all agreed and immediately arranged from the neighbourhood. So where do we keep it now? That is when Buddha smiled. The universe said that this was why we brought in the little kid to draw nothing but Buddha!!!! It was purely a blissful moment! We totally felt that things do fall in place when we do the right things and engage with right people!!!! Having decided that, we called mam to formally open, but she said she could wait for aachi to come and cut the ribbon. We insisted that we had other plans and so she went ahead and read a story for children from one of our books.

Aachi arrived with his grandson who made himself comfortable in the last row of chairs. We received aachi and brought her in to light the lamp. She was totally reluctant as she felt herself unfit to light the lamp (given her widow status). When we all insisted that only she is the right person to do, she agreed, lighted and prayed for a while. What a fulfilling moment it was!!!! 

The guests agreed to give away gifts to children and Pushpalata ma'am spoke a few words to children on how important it is to read books. She addressed them in a simple, understandable way with examples. She noticed that there were literally no adults or parents from the village to see their children get a new place to read the world! 

Followed by her, we were skeptical about aachi's willingness to speak. But she right away jumped in and delivered a short one. She told the kids that she dropped out after class 5 but reads 5 different newspapers everyday. The highlight of her address is this: "A group of four boys when sent to a library, one would pick up the habit of reading whereas in a group of four girls, all four would get inclined to reading and make use of the library." Such a simple enlightening one!

That was the end of it... NO, the BEGINNING!!! 

Children promised to visit library almost everyday! 💞

...to be continued 💝

Tomoe Express - 2

The most difficult task of finding the physical space was over which gave us a huge sigh of relief! There was absolutely no major support from the village in identification of space. We relied upon one resident of the village who is known to us for years and he was helpful throughout. 

As soon as this first step was achieved, the rest fell in place. Purchase of books, shelves and mats were the following steps and were quite a smooth sailing. The books were purchased from various children publications, sought help from children authors and they were registered promptly before shelving. There were a couple of friends who contributed to the purchase of books and mats. 

Though we were open to using old books too, we did not get many until the inauguration of the event. Therefore, almost all of the books are new. Those that we received later are now stocked and getting registered for the next Tomoe library (likely to happen before June 2022). Along with the above mentioned items, fans, tube lights and focus lights were bought to make this tiny space as bright and airy as possible.

Well, how do we attract children to a space known to them as dull, unused and had alcohol bottles everywhere? Additionally, books don't attract children easily. We then decided to make the place attractive with colours and wall paintings. We were lucky to find a student-artist who did those outer walls and Tomoe express for half the price he would normally charge!! 

Towards the completion of his work, I regretted for not involving a neighbour kid (10 year old) who has is passionate about painting. I felt that it would have been nice if I had asked her to draw a Buddha for us, as almost all walls are old and look not so great. But did not try. Yet, in a couple of days her mother shared that the kid wanted to paint something as she got inspired by the outer wall painting we shared on WhatsApp. I immediately requested her to draw a Buddha for us and she did. This is her first ever wall painting! 

Why did I say Buddha when she was better at painting natural sceneries!!!??? The Universe gave me an answer later!

To be continued... 💝

Tomoe Express - 1

A library is capable of widening one’s mind and soul and this is irreplaceable. Yet, the relationship between children and library is gloomy for several reasons such as non-availability, non-accessibility and non-realization of its significance. One cannot do anything huge to bring about a vast social change. However, creating a change in the neighbourhood is highly possible. This led to the initiation of opening of children’s library in a nearby village whose chances of exploring one is rare. 

In a distance of 5km from our residence, Tomoe Library (a free library for children) is opened at Vallavankottai, Tirunelveli. This village has two schools, two anganwadis & a village library largely meant for adolescents and adults.

In spite of a village (government) library present, why a new one?

Most of the libraries do not have any exclusive section for children and it is not possible for an outsider to get associated with the library to conduct regular sessions in order to motivate children to read beyond books! So an independent one!! 

To start with, the name is an inspiration derived from the book, Totto-Chan. And therefore the train structure! 🚄

To gain trust in a community is a mammoth task. A proposal of a free library kindles thoughts of people as to what would be the hidden agenda for us. Beating the odds is no easy task and we did not find a common place in the Panchayat that could be utilized for the library. Instead, we had to rent a place, a tiny one which was the only available space shown to us. No matter how small or big the space is when we put in all our love and soul into it. That’s how the physical space came into the picture finally! 💞

Some before-after pictures,      

(1)

(2)

 

 

 (3)

 

To transform a physical space into something of real use is like creating magic – This is what we felt during the process of transformation!

...to be continued! 💝