SETTING UP A STAIRWAY TO DREAMS WITH BOOKS
Students of DU’s Shri Ram College of Commerce are establishing libraries for underprivileged children across the Capital
For those of us who have grown up reading books, words and tales have been an escape, a journey into fantastical realms we never lived in. Books have become dream catchers for us, capturing our imagination and sparking an undying interest in things and thoughts. It is thanks to them that those who have been able to realise their dreams, have done so. Yet there are many who never get introduced to that world or the access to the kind of dreams it offers.
However, that is set to change slightly now. The students of DU’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), as part of the Connecting Dreams Foundation, have undertaken the ‘Dream Library’ initiative with the goal to connect hundreds of underprivileged children with the written word. Headed by the college’s students Arpita Sharda and Atishay Jain, the initiative will help libraries for the underprivileged come up across Delhi-NCR. After due research, visits and analysis, the collective has zeroed down on three such schools in East Delhi, and will set up the libraries on Children’s Day (November 14) this year. They successfully set up two libraries in the ‘School Under the Bridge’ and the ‘School Under the Tree’, near Yamuna Bank, last year.
“The Connecting Dreams Foundation-SRCC was started to uplift the condition of urban slum schools by providing them access to education and also a normal childhood, and to connect them to their dreams,” says Sanyam Gupta, co-president of the society. “Under this projects, we are impacting the lives of underprivileged students by imparting the value of reading,” adds Sharda.
What makes the initiative even more interesting is that each book in the three new libraries will have a wish card at the back. The children can write any wish that they have on it after completing the book and the collective will try to make that wish come true.