Bookaroo – increasing reading in children - Fusion - WeRIndia

A small children book store called Eureka in Delhi now grew to something much bigger. It all started in 2003 when M.Venkatesh, a journalist with many years of working experience and Swati Roy, a marketing professional started Eureka. Even with humble beginnings, the concept of the bookstore became popular.

Following the popularity of the bookstore, five years later the duo wanted to expand it much further. So, in 2008, they inducting one more co-founder Jo Williams in the team and launched India’s first children’s literature festival Bookaroo.

Venkatesh says that the main aim of starting this is to bring books, children, writers, and book lovers together in one platform and let them celebrate the joy of reading.

The literature festival has many people speaking and there are also programs for children. The festival conducts workshops on a wide array of topics like creating fictional worlds and recycling paper etc. There will be a story session under the banyan tree as well. The festival also conducts panel discussions and puppet shows for insight and entertainment.

Children can also meet many famous authors and artists here. There are also cos-players of many well-known children’s characters like Horrid Henry, Elmer the Elephant, characters from Panchatantra or Ramayana, etc.

The main target audience for the festival is children aged between four and 16 years in Delhi and four and 12 years in other cities.

They have so far conducted eight festivals in seven cities including Delhi, Srinagar, Pune, Jaipur, Ahmadabad, Goa and Kuching (Singapore). They will be conduction their ninth edition of the literature festival on November 26 and 27.

Ventakesh says that in 2015, more than 100 speakers from different countries participated in the event. They have had more than 51,000 children in the festival just last year.

Venkatesh says that financial aspect of the organization is the biggest challenge and that other aspects are going well.

 

Image Reference: Yourstory