Udaipur Children's Book Festival is being organized under a campaign to promote Reading with Understanding. Vidya Bhavan plans to organize this event every year in Udaipur to promote a culture of reading and writing. The basic idea is to promote a vibrant educational environment that provides opportunities to all students, teachers, and parents to engage in the process of reading, writing and comprehension. The aim is to move towards building a society where everyone has access to quality educational content, effectively addressing the gaps in the learning process. The campaign will motivate students to become skilled readers and lifelong learners.

This campaign is being launched with the month-long (3 January to 31 January) Udaipur Children's Book Festival. Vidya Bhavan is organizing this event in collaboration with reputed organizations like Eklavya, HT Parekh Foundation, Centre for Micro Finance. Rama Mehta Trust, and Language Learning Foundation.

Objectives

• Provide opportunities for access to quality educational materials
• Cultivate a culture of reading, writing, and fearless self-articulation
• Empower students as proficient readers and lifelong learners
• Enhance learning confidence
• Strengthen foundational learning

About Udaipur Children's Book Festival

The "Reading with Understanding" Campaign is an initiative led by the Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre (VBERC) in collaboration with like-minded organisations. It will engage with schools, civil society, and the government education system. Their vision for this campaign is to create a transformative effort aimed at nurturing a culture of reading, writing. and comprehensive learning among children, thereby empowering them to become proficient readers and lifelong learners.

Following activities will take place at the Udaipur Children's Book Festival:

1. Availability of Children's Literature and Educational Materials

World-class children's literature and educational resources will be made available to all at the book festival. This will include literature and educational resources from renowned publishers such as NBT, CBT, NCERT, Muskaan, Tulika, Pratham, Scholastic, Eklavya, Ektara, Random House Children's Books, HarperCollins Children's Books, Candlewick Press, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, Penguin Young Readers Group, Usborne Publishing, Hachette Children's Group, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Walker Books, and others. Information about this activity will be disseminated throughout the city via print and electronic media to encourage the young learners, parents, and families with children to visit the exhibition, become familiar with children's literature, and acquire these resources. People and organizations interested in this initiative will be invited to join and support the campaign.

2. Learning Activities and Learner Confidence

Schools will be invited to participate in the exhibition and encourage their students to participate in language learning and other activities. Alongside the focus on teaching and learning languages, we will promote interest in quality children's literature. These activities will be facilitated by resource persons and experts in different fields from VBERC and other organizations. Activities such as conversation sessions between children and education personnel on important issues like constitutional values. responsible and sensitive citizenship, environmental awareness, scientific experiments, logical puzzle solving, etc, will be organized. Also, Bal Mela, reading and writing workshops, seminars, anti-superstition activities etc. will be organized to promote the growth of scientific temper.

3. Initiating Reading with Understanding in Schools

Leveraging on the rich heritage, extensive experience, and networking of Vidya Bhawan family of institutions, the team is dedicated to extending their expertise and resources to connect with the children of Government and Vidya Bhawan schools. The team will prepare and donate a set of language learning materials for the libraries of these schools. These materials will be useful in strengthening the language learning and teaching process and in establishing a collaboration with the students and teachers at these schools.

This initiative will support the education personnel associated with Vidya Bhawan and government schools to continue their work with children under the Reading with Understanding' campaign. Special efforts will be made to reach out to children from kachchi bastis of Udaipur by providing books and promoting reading centres with support to groups and organizations working there. This initiative is seen as an important step towards improving foundational learning in our children. This Campaign can be seen as effectively promoting children's learning processes in line with the challenges posed by the New Education Policy and the present state of our elementary education.