The afternoons are a special time for the children of Chagaletti, a tiny village located 23 kilometers from Bengaluru. While the elders tak...
The afternoons are a special time for the children of Chagaletti, a tiny village located 23 kilometers from Bengaluru. While the elders take a quick nap after a heavy lunch and the village atmosphere turns placid, the children get busy reading and discussing stories in their “favourite place” – Chagaletti Makkala Granthalaya (Chagaletti Children’s Library).
The 10-year-old establishment, inaugurated on August 14, 2010, is a “truly unique space”, said Shalini PV, one of the six founding members of the library, who was a class eight student at the time. Now, Shalini works for a Bengaluru-based software firm and has her reasons to be proud of the library she helped start.
The award-winning library is run entirely by children, who are also its readers. Within eight months of being established, it won the prize for best community library, an annual award given by the Hippocampus Reading Foundation, a Bengaluru-based NGO that works in the field of education and libraries.
“First, it’s hard to find a library in an Indian village,” said Shalini. “Second, it’s a children’s library. The children take care of the management, from borrowing, returns, inventory and maintenance, they do everything,” Shalini’s words are echoed on the graffitied walls of the library –...
