Children’s library set up in Chamba’s Salooni
Hoping to inculcate a reading habit among children, a dedicated children’s library and activity centre has been set up at Talori village in the remote Salooni sub-division of Chamba.
Salooni sub-divisional magistrate Indian Administrative Officer Kiran Bhadana, who ideated the concept, inaugurated the ‘children’s learning centre’ on Tuesday. A second centre will be opened in the same subdivision on Friday.
These centres have been built to nurture the natural curiosity of children, said Bhadana. Around 200 English and Hindi books have been made available in each centre for children from ages 3 to 15. Besides this, a wide range of materials for fun-andlearning activity, including puzzles, globes, modeling clay, trampolines, games and toys have also been procured.
“The floors at the centres have also been designed as an educational tool, following the building as learning aid (BaLA) system. We have augmented existing unused and under-utilised infrastructure,” she said.
The officer said the model had successfully been applied previously while setting up five libraries in Salooni for those state service examinations. These centres were set-up with the help of corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding provided by the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVNL) facilitated by Chamba deputy commissioner DC Rana, pradhan of Sundla panchayat Deep Raj and Salooni’s Vyapar Mandal head Pawan Kumar.
The anganwadi workers of the concerned areas have been tasked with running and overseeing the functioning of the centres. Bhadana hopes that the Children’s Learning Centres will not only provide kids with a platform to learn through activities, but set a new benchmark for the functioning of Anganwadi centres, leading to integrated early childhood development in a region which has been hitherto underdeveloped.