Swaha Sahoo
Head, Parag Initiative
Launched Hawa Mahal, Library Khidki.

Parag collaborated with Centre for microFinance Rajasthan, and the governments of UP and Rajasthan to create multimedia content when Corona locked kids out of libraries

When India locked itself up in March, the children of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh’s government schools weren’t happy about the holiday. They had been shut out of spaces where community libraries allowed them access to books and the world of stories.

For the last 15 years, Parag, a Mumbai-headquartered initiative of Tata Trusts, has worked to support school and community libraries, so that children, especially in secluded districts of the country, have free access to storybooks. "Most of these children come from underprivileged homes, where a reading culture doesn’t exist; their only access to reading material was at these school libraries. For the first few weeks, we struggled to offer them access," says Swaha Sahoo, who heads Parag. Sahoo, who believes that stories are important for the "social and emotional well-being" of children, realised that the digital space could help tide over this vacuum.