Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned a library in his Mann Ki Baat on 24 November. The special thing is that he mentioned the library located in Gopalganj district of Bihar, due to which today children and youth of many villages are getting facilities.
Actually, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the 116th episode of his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on Sunday. In this episode, PM Modi talked about the villages of the country, from youth to farmers. He congratulated the cadets on NCC Day.
mentioned the library
Also discussed the Indians settled in the South American country Guyana. The special thing of this episode was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi also mentioned about the library running in a village located in Kuchaikot block of Gopalganj district of Bihar. Kuchaykot is a border place of the district. The border here is with Kushinagar of Uttar Pradesh. This journey that started about 10 years ago has become a caravan today.
Located in Kuchayakot
The foundation of this library was laid by local youth Surya Prakash Rai. Regarding the opening of this library, Surya Prakash says that the purpose behind starting it was to reach the light of education to those children who were deprived of this light till now. Surya Prakash tells that it was started in Bania Chhapar village of Kuchaykot block. It was started in 2013.
change through education
Surya Prakash says, our only thought was that through education, the flame of education should be awakened among all those who till now have been deprived of education. Our effort was to make children’s literature available to children, so that whichever child the book reached, all the children could read and understand it. Our third objective was to gradually shift the entire Bihar towards reading culture. We started with this objective.
Study from IIT Mumbai
Surya Prakash has done M.Phil from IIT Mumbai. Surya Prakash says that the biggest reason behind starting this experiment library in Gopalganj was that my ancestral residence is Gopalganj. Although the family members lived in Ranchi, the relationship with the village has always remained. Whenever I came to the village, I used to think that education is the only thing which can change the situation. I used to think that if I do anything in my life, I will do it only in the field of education.
Surya Prakash said that I always kept my work above all else. When I started this work, I did not expect that I would get such huge success. When I started working, I started getting support from people. People kept joining. Whenever a new District Magistrate came to the district, he greatly appreciated our work. When this information came to the common people, they also helped us a lot.
Work in government schools also
Surya Prakash says, we started as a community library in our village but after that our caravan kept growing. After this we started working in government schools also. When we started it, only 15 children came and all of them were of 10 to 12 years of age. When we started working with them, we realized that we would have to work for children of younger age also. Because when we started our work, at that time such children who were 6-7 years old also used to come.
When we didn’t have space, he used to stand outside. We started with the children of class 7th and 8th but in 2017-18 we started it with the children of class 1st. Presently we are providing education to children from class one to class five.
work in 90 groups
Surya Prakash Rai, who started this experiment library in 2013 with 15 children, is currently working in 24 government schools. Their work is going on in about 80-90 villages and hamlets of Kuchayakot block, which also have government schools. Surya Prakash also tells that at the district level we have got approval to work in 24 more schools. Now we will work in 48 schools.
start with four people
Surya Prakash says, when I laid its foundation in 2013, I ran the entire campaign almost single-handedly till 2020. Although in the initial phase three to four people were associated with me. Now there are about 40 people in our team and about 90 percent of them are women who are local. Whoever we select, it is our responsibility to train them. We train them at the local level as well as outside Bihar where training is conducted. They also send him there so that he can share literature with children in a better way. Our endeavor is to involve as many local people as possible because they can be the first agents of change.
