Books to cinema and culture, a Bengaluru community library is changing kids' lives

Located in Roopena Agrahara, a small fringe neighbourhood of labourer communities, the library provides opportunities to children from underprivileged backgrounds.

HAADIBADI

FEATURES EDUCATION WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2021 - 12:16

Melvin Mathew Follow @MELVINMATHEW12

As the city grew over time and apartment buildings began to pop up in Roopena Agrahara, a small fringe neighbourhood of labourer communities near Bommanahalli in Bengaluru, it left an absence of adequate safe spaces for children from the area.

Haadibadi, a community library project, was established to provide an alternative space for the children of Roopena Agrahara. It also functions as a shelter from the violent realities around them. The towering skyscrapers overshadowing the deprived neighbourhoods became a symbol of the ever-widening the gaps in the society. `

Born and brought up in the neighbourhood, the founder and director of Haadibadi, who is also a teacher at St Joseph’s College, Ravikiran Rajendran remembers with fondness the tamarind trees and the now-absent open spaces, as much as he witnessed the shrinking spaces and mounting violence in the streets. He remembers seeing people being chased after with machetes and sickles as a child. He adds that even after two decades, the neighbourhood bears the same mark. On the same roads that the children play, they also have to see gruesome street fights.

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https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/books-cinema-and-culture-bengaluru-community-library-changing-kids-lives-141383