: You Can Help Youth in Rural UP Prepare for Exams, Thanks to These 2 Law Students #IndiaNEWS #Education In rural areas such as Cheruia or Bansa of Uttar Pradesh, it is hard to find girls who are pursuing

You Can Help Youth in Rural UP Prepare for Exams, Thanks to These 2 Law Students #IndiaNEWS #Education
In rural areas such as Cheruia or Bansa of Uttar Pradesh, it is hard to find girls who are pursuing their education. Boys who are studying do not continue their education after 10th grade as they join daily labour or start working in their family business. Some who are motivated to continue their education do not have access to the necessary study material,??? says Jatin Lalit, a resident of Bansa, Uttar Pradesh, and a 22-year-old law student at Galgotias University, Noida.
So how does one fix a problem like this? Jatin has the answer
“Libraries are vital to rural communities because it provides access to information and encourages young people to expand their knowledge,???
Which is why, early in August, along with his college senior Praveen Kumar, Jatin took up the task of setting up a community library at Cheruia village, in Baliya district.
Praveen Kumar and Jatin Lalit
The community library at Cheruia was open to the public in the first week of September and is set up at a public resthouse in the village. It has over 600 books 200 educational books and 400 storybooks primarily written in Hindi. Jatin says the community library aims to address all these issues and provide them a safe space to learn.
Jatin says, “There are 30 students who visit the library regularly, and spend half a day or sometimes more to read. We aim to create a repository with 5000 books which will directly benefit 7000 people living in and around Cheruia. ???
Students from the village accessing the library.
How did they set it up?
Since 2016, Jatin has been part of The Community Library Project (TCLP) A Delhi-based organisation focussed on setting up community libraries in rural areas. By volunteering, he has helped to set up many community libraries in rural areas.
He says that setting up a community library requires two essentials

A place to set it up free of cost
A minimum of 50 people who are interested to visit the library regularly.

“The first criteria is usually easy to fulfill. In Cheruia’s case, Praveen got permission from local authorities who allowed us to use a public resthouse where travellers or homeless people would spend the night. We were given two rooms, a small hall, and the verandah as a sit-out for readers. With help from friends and acquaintances in the village bookshelves were built and the library was painted. For the second criterion, after surveying seven villages, we noticed 110 students were preparing for government examinations and had no access to study material. The books they needed were available only at shops located in the city. Apart from that, 100 people said they were willing to read every day if they had access to books.