ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development (CADD) Tariq Fazal Chaudhry has said that bus library project funded by USAID has helped not only cultivate love of learning among the students but also created healthy environment in schools.
While addressing the ceremony of handing over mobile library by the USAID to Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) at Islamabad Model School F-7/1 on Thursday, the minister said that this colorful bus has visited 338 school and reached 65,000 children in Islamabad and Sindh.
The minister said that the USAID funded Pakistan Reading Project (PRP) being implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is helping improve reading skills of children across Pakistan. The mobile bus library is another step towards promoting a reading culture in Pakistan, he remarked.
Tariq Fazal Chaudhry thanked the US government for their continued support to raising standards in Pakistani education.
The Director Education USAID (Pakistan) said Dr Christopher Steel that the Pakistan Reading Project is running a mobile bus library programme in Sindh and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) from the last two years and brought reading materials directly to communities and help re-establish reading habits.
Dr Christopher Steel said that trained librarians onboard each bus will conduct story-telling sessions in each community they visit. He added that they will also issue books for schoolchildren to take home to read.
The Director Education USAID (Pakistan) said that after each visit, the libraries leave behind the set of book so that children can continue to read, So far, added that, these mobile libraries have distributed 53,479 books during these visits.
The Chief of Party for USAID PRP Naeem Sohail Butt and the Director General FDE Hasnat Qureshi signed the transfer agreement of mobile bus library programme.
In the ceremony, Dr Christopher Steel handed over the key of bus to the CADD minister.
