Books being delivered in the library of PSD Pearabag School, 2019.

Submission by a student of Agamir Pathshala from Sajek for online drawing competition.

An interactive online reading session held by volunteers for students of PSD Nandipara, 2021.

Students being assessed on their reading fluency by volunteers at Sohag Swapnodhara Pathshala. 2022

The Volunteer Appreciation Program 2022 was held on **23 December 2022** as the Library Project's year-end function. The program was held at the AEF office, and 13 volunteers took part.

The Volunteer Appreciation Program 2023 at AEF office, was held on 21st January 2024.

Library Project

library Project is the continuation of the Books & Libraries initiative that started in 2016. In 2019, the initiative found its new pace and started with new vigor as the Library Project. The aim of the Library Project is to give underprivileged children the opportunity to explore the world through literature, films, seminars, and interactive sessions, consequently developing their cognitive skills & creativity. The Library Project starts by building a library system in a school where students can read books, both fiction and non-fiction. The books are chosen after extensive research to fit the curriculum and competency level of the respective students and are provided in weekly cycles. Books are collected through donations or purchased with donated money. This project is primarily run by a dedicated and hardworking team of volunteers. Each school has its own designated team of Library Project volunteers to ensure a smooth and effective execution.

2016: The Beginning

The project began its journey in 2016 under the name ‘Books and Libraries’. The leads/owners were Monowar Hossain and Nisar A.

2019: Relaunch & Tapping into the Potential

A very first batch of volunteers, the first festivals of the Library Project and the start of an exciting journey

The project was relaunched in September 2019 with the name of ‘Library Project’ in four schools of Dhaka for primary-level students only. Within its 3 months duration, with the help of volunteers, the schools identified a student leader in each class who managed the distribution of books to students, and provided 1 book per week for about 12 weeks. The project ended with a library festival in each school, where the students participated in various activities. Schools that have benefited from the Library Project that year include Shohag Swapnadhara Pathshala | Pearabag Primary School | Shurerdhara Pathshala | Bangladesh Mohila Samity Primary School | Alok Shikkhaloy.

Milestones:

Reached around 400 primary-level students.
Donated more than 500 books all over.
Partnered with Children’s Film Society, Bangladesh & arranged a movie show in each school.
Recruited its first batch of volunteers.

2020: A Challenge & the Pursuit of A Silver Lining

The Library Project team was working diligently from the beginning to continue their project that year too, but everything was put to a stop due to covid-19. Later the team arranged an online inter-school Cultural Competition among the students to add some colors not only to their halted student life but also to the volunteers. It had categories of singing, recitation, drawing, and story writing. The competition was judged by renowned artists live on Facebook.

Milestones:

Around 12 schools participated in the online intercultural competition.
A total of 148 students participated in all categories combined.
Some exceptional artists were discovered in certain schools.

2021: Exploring New Opportunities

2021 was a challenge for the Library Project team. Involving students in extracurricular activities while the 2020 crisis was still going on was difficult as schools only partially resumed their offline lessons. So the team started hybrid sessions. But it was hard indeed as the underprivileged community was technologically challenged as well. The team supplied books to schools, arranged seminars, and modified their action plans for online book reading sessions & assessments.

Milestones:

Arranged interactive online storytelling sessions in 3 schools in Dhaka where a total of around 150 students participated.
Arranged an interactive Seminar on Waste Management & Segregation in Aalok Shikkhaloy where around 50 students participated.
Library Project was resumed at 2 schools where the students got to read the books provided by the team accessed from their library.

2022: Ensuring Quality over Quantity

The year 2022 was a great start for the team. They decided to implement their activities in all the schools of Dhaka. In an attempt to make the project more effective, they started taking assessments on the reading fluency of the students. With a team of 30 volunteers, sub-teams were made for the proper execution of the project in each school. The data of the first and last reading fluency assessments were compared to see the progress of each student in each school under the project.

Milestones:

All six schools of Dhaka were included in the project reaching around 1000 students only this year.
Students of classes 6 to 10 were included alongside classes 3 to 5.
More than 1500 books were distributed.
4 assessments were taken in each school and improvement in their fluency was noticed at the end of the project.
Volunteer-student interaction increased as volunteers visited the school more often ( at least 4 times during the project).

2023: Growing Strong with New Partnerships

In 2023, besides continuing our operations in schools inside Dhaka, we formed new partnerships with two organizations outside AEF - Cholpori and Volunteer of Bangladesh(VBD) Netrakona. With VBD Netrakona team and Agami Netrakona Chapter, we started our operations in Netrakona district. We also introduced a more structured reading fluency assessment and held storytelling sessions for students in each school's classes.

Milestones