Thamarai
"Imagination tree library"

Team members at Thamarai Community Centre, Edayanchavadi village nearby Auroville were saddened to see how little access the children of the village had to books. The local government school and village are without any form of library and the children's classroom text books are primarily without colour, illustrations and often written in very “heavy” language styles. The practice of reading has not yet been nurtured in the local culture and it is rare to see someone reading anything except the newspaper.

An aspiration arose to change this and Thamarai's team set about securing books from many sources including Auroville's Blueberry Library.
No sooner had the books arrived than the perfect help also came in the open hearts, hands and minds of Michelle and Myanna, two American university students from the Living routes project who rose to the task of creating a systemised library where the children could enjoy reading and have the possibility to take the books home.

The girls ordered a chaotic but beautiful array of books, set up a system where by the children could have access to bring books home and created a beautiful wall mural “the Imagination tree”which fruits all kinds of surprises.

Then Storytellers Satheesh and Bade came forward offering to provide a storytime and film circle on Saturday afternoons and percussionist Hugo and Tuygi join them to add some rhythms to the Saturday occasions.

The children are delighted with their new space and stories and have started to sit at the foot of the imagination tree many evenings a week, book in hand and get lost in the wonderland of imagination that the stories evoke.

The older children have been busy coming up with plans on how to promote care of the books and the room, a solution to tracking the books and the nomination of a library team working on a rotational monthly basis from a pool of eager older children . This initiative hopes to evoke empowerment and social responsibility in the children as well as creating an opportunity of opening minds to the amazing world of literature.

Thank you to all involved for the enthusiasm, energy and smiles that created our imagination tree library.

Thamarai@auroville.org.in

www.thamarai.org