Students of schools run by Federal Directorate of Education (FDE)’s will now have mobile libraries at their institutions. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded mobile libraries will be set up inside a bus which will move between various schools opening up a world of books for children.

David Miliband who is president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Donald Larry Sampler, assistant to the USAID administrator, officially inaugurated the Pakistan Reading Project’s mobile bus library program at Islamabad Model School, Chak Shahzad. “The Mobile Library Program will help Pakistani children go on their own journey in the world of books,” said Larry Sampler.

The Pakistan Reading Project, implemented by the IRC, will run mobile bus library programs in Islamabad and Sindh over the next two years, with the aim of bringing reading materials directly to communities and help develop a reading habit. According to USAID, the libraries will issue books to students to take home and have trained librarians onboard each bus who will hold story-telling sessions at each community they visit.

“The Project is helping improve children’s reading skills across Pakistan. The mobile bus library is another step towards promoting a reading culture in Pakistan,” says David Miliband President IRC.

Director General FDE Qaiser Majid Malik, coordinator Tahir Bhatti and others attended the inaugural ceremony. “This is a great project for our students. We have been assured that the bus will be become operational, very soon,” Mr Tahir Bhatti told Dawn.

—Photos and Text By Kashif Abbasi

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2014