The Agastya’s Campus Creativity Lab at Kuppam is designed to provide children with the best learning environment and equipment. It strives to truly invoke children’s curiosity and enable them to learn by themselves instead of hand-feeding information that students learn by rote for the sole purpose of school.
This series of articles aims to provide a glimpse of the different labs and spaces on the campus and how they aid the process of “Aah! Aha! Ha-Ha!,” the Agastya Way of Learning. What does this stand for? The Aah indicates the curiosity one has about phenomena around them. The Aha is for when one conducts experiments and arrives at an explanation for their curiosity. The Ha-Ha stands for the joy gained during this process of learning.
The Vidya Jyoti Library at the Kuppam Campus is a one-of-a-kind space that provides space for children to read books and also make them for free! The Library is located at an angle from which one can view the valleys and the meeting point of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. These stunning views provide the perfect backdrop for reading, whether for fun or studies.
The Library houses over 17,000 books in English and vernacular languages like Telugu and Kannada. It also has over 2,000 digitised books. Both fictional and educational books from publishers like NBT, CBT, Pratham, Tulika, Nava Karnataka and Manchi Pusthakam are available, with free access. This helps us use our resources to support the community’s educational, cultural, and recreational needs and encourage our patrons to do the same.
Agastya aims to provide books to children from areas where schools are not necessarily equipped, and electricity is too unstable to access them on the internet. The Vidya Jyoti library helps achieve this aim, both through its on-campus resources and its Community Library Program. The Community Library Program is a Library branch that erects libraries in different communities that can’t access the campus. These community libraries help reach more children in remote areas and enable them to read, write and speak more confidently.
However, the unique feature of the Vidya Jyoti Library is not how it helps children read books but also how to make them. It teaches children the process of creating books hands-on, from book design and story creation to illustration and bookbinding. Other hands-on activities, like Hand Puppet, Stick Puppet, Foam Puppet, String Puppet, Sock puppet and Shadow Puppet, help develop their storytelling skills, communication and confidence.
The library aims to enhance the reading, writing and storytelling skills of children who may otherwise not get many opportunities to explore the above. This is a process of identifying each child’s current level and helping them grow through a series of activities that embody Agstya’s spirit of learning.
