Dharma Life - an initiative of Gajam India Pvt Ltd - held reading sessions using solar lanterns for over 150,000 rural students in 1,400 villages across India on the occasion of International Literacy Day earlier this month.
The initiative is focused on making books more accessible, making reading fun and inculcating reading as a habit. As part of the initiative, Dharma Life entrepreneurs held reading classes with children between ages eight to 15 years.
"Through this campaign, we hope to inspire children, teachers and parents to recognise and promote talent. Through this campaign, we also wanted to demonstrate the use of clean energy solar lanterns, which allow village activities to continue long after the sun sets," Gaurav Mehta, Founder and CEO of Dharma Life/Gajam India.
Lighting Up Young Minds is an interactive campaign aimed at providing learning opportunities for personal growth to children through various extracurricular activities, with a focus on improving literacy skills through guided reading.
In 2015, LUYM started as a campaign to promote three objectives - engaging rural children in reading activities, shaping their aspirations through drawing and painting sessions and demonstrating the benefits of clean energy technology to the entire community through reading events with solar lights.
The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of International Literacy Day and UNESCO celebrating it under the banner "Reading the Past, Writing the Future".
This year the focus of International Literacy Day is on "Innovation in Literacy". Dharma Life entrepreneurs held reading classes with children between ages eight to 15 years, using Pratham books in print as well as digital format.
The campaign included sports, music, dance and poetry recitation activities that facilitate learning and overall development of children by boosting their imagination and creativity.
Dharma Life has been implementing the "Lighting Up Young Minds (LUYM)" campaign since 2015.
