JORHAT: The habit of reading should be sown in the fresh minds of the youngsters which would later bore fruits of learning.
The Jorhat Chapter of NGO JCI Femina took the responsibility of inculcating the habit of reading in the young minds by setting up a library in a tree in Mariani town's Girl High School where tin boxes are nailed to the tree to house more than 600 books in Assamese, Hindi, and English ranging from comics to autobiographies of famous people and children fiction.
"We took permission from the school, and hired a carpenter and used household waste material, large containers, to make shelves. The library with 600 books was launched on Sept. 3," NGO president Dipika Poddar said.
The secretary of the NGO Shivani Agarwal also said that they spent nearly 15000 rupees in creating out this unique library and are also thinking of hiring a teacher for the library.
The children are happy with this new addition to their school and one of the students Nisha of Class X said, "I always loved to read books and I am happy that this tree library has so many of them".
The School has 422 students which means there will be more than one book for each student in the school.
However the local environmentalists are concerned about the impact it would have on the ecosystem and one such environmentalist of the area Mridu Paban Phukan said, "They could have set it up on a bamboo or metal pole. Nails used to fix the bookshelves will have an adverse impact on the trees. They could have used ropes instead and they have used paint on the trees which would hamper the ecosystem of ants and other such insects".
The concept of an open library in a school is very unique and it not only adds to the knowledge bank of the students but also teaches them the important aspect of being one with nature from where we associate our creation.
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