For the past two years Bookworm’s outreach sites have been listed as Chimbel, Cacra, Santa Cruz and Aldona. There has been a need to increase our outreach but no one on the team seemed able or willing to take up this initiative. Thankfully initiative comes to Bookworm. Beatriz Contreras Milla, who heard about Bookworm, immediately stepped inside our library to pick up books for her group of children who are part of her organization which is called “Live Happy”.
Sujata initiated a conversation with the team urging team members to select new sites and suddenly there was an interest and an initiative to go to new locations. Almost overnight, we decided to begin weekly library sessions in two other locations. We began with an introductory session , shared with children a story and how we care for library books and thereafter felt even more ready to begin. That’s how we ventured all the way from Panjim to Assagao to start a site at Live Happy.
Live happy is an organization located in the heart of Assagao, an NGO which is founded by Felly Gomes and Beatriz Contreras Milla (livehappygoa.com). The ambiance and the atmosphere is really welcoming and aesthetically appealing. The structure is all coconut thatch and provides a warm atmosphere.The next thing which we liked about the organization is the welcoming team of Live Happy. The team that lives happily is full of enthusiastic energy. Apart from this, the gem of the Live Happy is the children. The children’s ages are from 6 – 15 years.
So far, we have had four sessions and the children enjoy each element to the fullest :
Singing Bookworm songs: Right from the first day, the children picked up the repertoire of Bookworm songs and sang enthusiastically. Later on, in the sessions, the moment we step inside the library, the children want to sing the Bookworm songs. They too taught us a new song which was good for us to learn.
Making their own lending card: This was a good start right from making the lending cards to recording their own borrowing of storybooks.
Book – Browsing time: This is a completely new element that we have introduced. In this segment, we provide focused time for the children to go through the collection, skim and scan and get to know the books that are available for lending. We know that the browsing time helps them make good selections over time.
Listening to stories: This is something which we slowly introduced and I can tell that they love to listen to the story. Every child in the room has something or the other to contribute to the story and that is something that I feel that I love about the children. They want to listen and they want more stories and that’s what we love to do – read aloud a story for every library session.
We are all excited to be here and we hope to continue this excitement into the future. We really would like to thank Live Happy Organization for allowing Bookworm to bring happiness and joy of reading into the lives of more children.