Where the mind is without fear and the held is high… into that heaven of freedom my father, let my country awake

Rabindranath Tagore

It’s not a day's work to set one generation into right path, particularly, when the generation has suffered a cruel divide on basis of economy. Aakanksha Foundation, an NGO, has taken the initiative to bring knowledge to those who, according to government's agenda, only need to be literate.

With an objective to get the slum children excited about reading books that can in turn create a passion for the same, the foundation had organised a literary fest- Open Books Open Minds on Saturday, August 30. Apart from reading, the fest was also meant to encourage creativity in terms of writing and expression through skits.

"Nothing can replace the joy of reading, but children are so over burdened with their courses that they tend to loose interest. We are conducting festivals of this kind to encourage reading among the children. These children hardly come across good books. So we are here to bring some good reading to them," shares Reeves Rodrigues, general manager, Aakanksha foundation.

The management team has designed a mission statement that reads- we are working for slum children, and our organisation believes that good basic education is the best way to help India's slum children help themselves. We aspire to provide them a balanced education that focuses on both intellectual and emotional development.

Giving the details of the programme, Rodrigues says, "We already have Literature Circle in our organistion which regularly brings in some good reading for the kids here. In the beginning of the fest teachers put up a skit where they portrayed how good and fun reading can be,” adding, "The fest also includes story telling by our guest, Sonali Adkar, who used different props like balloons to narrate a story, with the theme of power of unity, in most interesting way. We then divided the children into groups following which they were encouraged to write poetry. We compiled those poems under the name of Book of poem by Aakansha children."