TISB Birthday Book Program

Initiated by Grade 11 student Sneha, the ‘TISB Birthday Book Donation Program’ aims to provide government school children from underprivileged backgrounds with Indian Story Books. This is made possible by the engagement of parents and students from the TISB Primary Years; who on a student’s birthday – or any other special occasion – can purchase a book of their choice from an Amazon wish list of books. The purchased books will then be donated in the sponsors name to the Ramagondanahalli school library. We got in touch with Sneha to better understand the program and why she started it. 

Reading has always been a big part of my life and helping government school children read books has become a passion for me over the past few years – Sneha, Grade 11 

Sneha started the Birthday Book Program as she has previously been involved in teaching socio-economically challenged students to read. “Having taught some of these children how to read, I realised that they could not relate to the books they were reading”, she says and explains that this made her discover the importance of introducing them to bilingual books in English and Kannada, Tamil and Hindi – similar to the ones she had read at their age. “I wanted them to be able to connect to such rich and diverse stories”.

Sneha believes that students and parents in the Primary Years at TISB enjoy giving back already at an early age, and that sponsoring books at their birthday is an added and inherent bonus. Currently, the program is completely managed online and books can be purchased through the newly developed Book Donation Program website. The books that are purchased will be dropped off at TISB from where they will be donated directly to the Ramagondanahalli Government school in Whitefield, Bangalore. 

But Sneha’s vision does not stop there. “In the future, I hope to open up this program to the entirety of the TISB parent and student community and would like to keep a steady flow of high-quality story books to be donated to more government schools in and around Bangalore”, says Sneha who would like the program to be the start of a new chapter for many years to come, where other TISB students would continue this endeavour in the future.