What do you do if you are nine years old, you live in a slum in Bhopal India, you love going to school and reading, and you want to introduce that love of reading to other children in your neighbourhood? Well if your name just happens to be Muskaan Ahirwar you run your very own children’s library.
Muskaan is a student at the Bhopal branch of the Rajya Shiksha Kendra (State Education Centre) and when it was realised that although students were doing their school work whilst at school, few if any were doing any reading when at home they decided to give out 25 books for the Bhopal children to read and share out among themselves when they were at home. This number has now at 119 books and is rising.
To get the children interested in the book sharing members of the Shiksha Kendra held a quiz competition which Muskaan won. She was also one of the most enthusiastic participants the Kendra members had ever met and now, here she is running her very own children’s library.
Each day, after school at around 4pm Muskaan can be found outside her house, reading to the other slum children, listening to them read and lending them books. Her older sister also keeps a register of the children using the library.
“I love doing this. Other children in slum area take books and then return other day. Some stay back to read here with me and ask questions where they don’t understand,” said Muskaan when talking to a Times of India reporter.
Bhopal Slums
What an amazing young lady.
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