FAISALABAD: As schools are closed in the wake of the second spike of coronavirus, Hassan Ali visited the nearby Jinnah Park one day to while away the time where he saw a colourful building -- a children’s library.

Hassan insisted his father to visit the library so that he could enjoy the company of books.

The Parks and Horticulture Authority in collaboration with local philanthropists restored the library in the park on Oct 21 to develop reading habits among children. The building was originally established for the library years ago but the building remained empty.

Earlier, the entire building was being used as a library and its office. However, this time, the place for library has been reduced to a single room and adjacent rooms are being used for offices.

This is the only public children library in the city.

Kinza Fatima, library in charge, told Dawn that 350 books on humour, Islamic history and Urdu and English stories are available for the children. She said local philanthropists donated the books.

She said daily upto 30 children visit the library but most of them come here for photography rather than reading books. She said the parents were using the library as day care centre as they came to park for walk and left their children at the library for the time being.

Hassan said he took his pictures with the books while sitting on a comfortable chair. However, he said, he did not read the books on his first visit as he had come to the park for enjoy time out rather than reading books.

He said he asked his father that he would come to the library only for reading and to eat fruit chaat.

Ahsan Ali, who was in the park for a walk, said it was a good initiative by the government to open the library at a park.

He said he visited the park occasionally for walk and found the building in shambles. “Now it’s giving a good look but the books available in the library are insufficient,” he added.

An employee of a canteen set-up near the library said the exterior of the library building attracted the children who wanted to visit it. However, he said, they often observed that the visitors left the library within few minutes instead of staying there for longer hours. He said the library had not contributed to the sale of the canteen.

Naseer, a visitor to the park, said he had been in Singapore for years where huge community libraries had been setup. He said such libraries were as big as shopping malls. He said he was convinced that reading is a fundamental habit that should become a part of every child’s routine and we have strive to develop this habit among children.

“We must organise events and competitions among children in the children library in the Jinnah Park which will ultimately invite the attention of children and their parents as well,” he suggested.

Ms Fatima said they were trying to convince the parents to bring their children to the library regularly so that we could help them develop reading habits. She said we would increase books with the passage of time.

Published in Dawn, Jannuary 5th, 2021