About the program

In 2020, when we reached five tribal villages with the idea of starting village libraries through the young girls and women, we found that all the girls and women we had identified through a process, do not have even basic literacy skills despite their education till 8th or 10th class. From more interactions with them, we got to know that the girls do not know the meaning of the signature. They cannot even tell their age accurately. They never saw a Bank or Post office, the places of financial transactions. They do go for labour, earn some money but have little idea about financial literacy, say, savings, investing etc. This situation led us to kickstart the programme for tribal adolecent girls through school libraries.
In 2022 , We started the existing school library program in the new geography, i.e. in 4 Ashramschools from Shahpur block of Thane district. Though the programme caters to the all children studying in from 5th to 7th grade, the special focus is on the girls.
Aafir is a korku word for flying. Korku is a tribal language of Korku community with whom we work at Akola.

Aims and objectives

• Develop interest and provide opportunities to the children from tribal communities for seeking enjoyment and pleasure from reading storybooks.
• Give exposure to different worldviews, lives, perspectives through storybooks and thereby broaden their horizen.
• Develop literacy and language skills of the children from tribal communities in the Marathi and their own language through the library activities.
• Create opportunities of expression (their opinions, thoughts, ideas) through art and verbal medium.
• Developing leadership skills of young girls.

Strategy for implementation

We run the library programme in 4 Ashramschools, which are governed by Tribal Development Department of Maharashtra. The programme is run throughout the year. Specially appointed book fairies run the programme in a school assigned to them. Students from 5th to 7th grade are enrolled in this programme

Activities

• Book borrowing and lending activity in the schools for class 5th to 7th.
• Sessions in the schools which includes activities and discussion on the library/ books.
• Sessions of Craft and art in the library Programe using books.
• Develop literacy through various library activities like scrumble the word, Word chain, sentence making ect.
• Leadership Development among tribal Adolescent Girls and Boys through regular weekly sessions.