“Children who start reading early understand situations better and they are able to analyse the pros and cons as well,” says M. Satish Babu, a techie who has embarked on a mission to inculcate reading habit among children by distributing free magazines, comics and books of other genres to schools and libraries in Andhra Pradesh and a few other States.
His belief that books build personality and that one becomes what one reads spurred him to initiate the books-distribution drive and help children discover their own self and enhance their social, emotional and creative development.
Founder and Managing Director of a software company, Tech Mark Training India, and Managing Trustee of HODU Education and Health Charitable Trust, a CSR initiative of Tech-Mark, Mr. Satish Babu is supplying 1 million magazines and comic books worth around ₹12 crore to children of government schools in Andhra Pradesh.
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The techie collaborated with MagazineLiteracy.org, a US-based NGO that supplies new and recycled magazines and comic books to millions of young readers across many countries, to deliver the joy of reading, especially among the under-served children in economically backward sections.
Sharing videos of the massive warehouse of the NGO in the U.S., Mr. Satish Babu talks about his plans to create similar facility in the State to make the book-distribution activity a continuous process.
Amidst making arrangements for the consignments of books to reach the State, he is parallelly reaching out to local libraries, offering them boxes full of books free of cost. He recently visited the Sarvottama Grandhalayam near Benz Circle with cartons of books that would find a place of pride in the renovated library building. Established in 1987, the place has been given a facelift.
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“Besides our own collection, we have donors coming in with books of different categories at regular intervals and it feels good to see that people still care to preserve books in this technology-driven era and are ready to walk that extra mile to promote reading habit,” said Raavi Sarada, secretary of Andhra Pradesh Library Association, who runs the grandhalayam.
Mr. Satish Babu has assured Ms. Sarada that he would continue to bring stocks of books and complete the children's section in the library. “The idea is to reach out to small towns where children do not have access and thus no exposure to the world cultures,” said Mr. Satish Babu.
He has also despatched stocks of books to a few libraries in Uttar Pradesh and Kashmir.