Project Outline:
The Next Page will be a youth community centre in Shivaji Nagar, Govandi. It will serve as a hub for the youth of Shivaji Nagar and the surrounding areas, promoting their personal growth and leadership qualities. It will also focus on community building by fostering meaningful interactions amongst the youth of the area.
Why:
Shivaji Nagar and Baiganwadi are located in the M (East) Ward, which is Mumbai’s least developed ward in terms of most indicators of social and economic well-being. Despite being part of India’s financial capital, it has a human development index of 0.05, with conditions comparable to developing nations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over 78% of the residents in the ward live in slums and the illiteracy rate is double that of the rest of Mumbai. 60% of the families have a monthly income below Rs. 10,000 and only 23% of those in the age group 18-23 are enrolled in higher educational institutions. The average life expectancy here is 38 years.[1]
The majority of the residents in the community is below the age of 30, and while opportunities to succeed are rare and obstacles aplenty, aspirations are high amongst the young people in the community.
Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly in such a situation, there is no place in the community where youngsters are able to access books outside the prescribed school curriculum[2]. Research about the positive impact of reading on academic success is well-documented[3] and things would be no different for Shivaji Nagar. Based on anecdotal evidence, students in the community are well-aware of the benefits of reading. However, the lack of access to such material or appropriate guidance from their teachers and mentors makes it near impossible for them to benefit from the effect of being regular readers.
A library in the community, run by the youth for the youth, will open doors that have been closed to them, allowing their aspirations to flourish. The youth of the community are often faced with a highly problematic atmosphere where gender-violence, juvenile crime, and substance abuse are rampant. An environment that values learning, creativity, and knowledge will provide them with a safe space that also pushes them to become thoughtful citizens who give back to the community.
Besides the benefits of having a library, the centre will also focus on football as a driver of change. Over the last three years Foxpassers Football Club has organised a football league every mid-term and summer vacation for children of a local school. Starting with just 4 teams and 20 boys, the most recent league had 170 girls and boys playing in 24 teams. The league is managed by the older students under the guidance of a coach and helps participants not only learn a sport but also values such as teamwork, leadership, fair-play, and grit. Expanding the scope of the football league will lead to positive impact on a far greater number of students in the community.
The communities of Shivaji Nagar and Baiganwadi have innumerable problems and large-scale and long-term attempts will have to be made by the government and civil society to create change. Next Page Centre will hope to be a small but practical part of the solution.
What:
At the core of The Next Page will be a library and reading room. This space will also serve as a venue for hosting educational events related to art, cinema, photography, music, and science. Along with these activities, the centre will also manage the Foxpassers Football Club, which has been active in the area for the last few years and has gained recognition in particular for encouraging gender inclusivity and equality.
Library: The library will house books in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu with the majority aimed at school and college students. The library will actively avoid stocking academic books and will promote an environment that emphasises growth beyond the prescribed syllabi in schools and colleges. There will be a membership system for those who want to borrow books while all children as well as youngsters with valid college IDs will be able to read books for free at the centre.
Activities: Reading, art, photography, cinema, music, and science events will be held on weekends and all members of the centre will be able to attend these free of cost. The events will be held along the line of workshop series, focusing on particular themes or topics. They will be conducted by inviting experts in these fields and through tie-ups with different organisations.
Football: Foxpassers Football Club (FFC) will be run under the supervision of Next Page Centre and will be managed by a group of youngsters who have already been associated with the club for the last few years. FFC will conduct training sessions for boys and girls of the community with the aim of enabling children of the community to participate in football competitions across the city. The youth football league that has been run by FFC for the last three years will continue to be held twice a year.
Who:
The centre will be open to all children of Shivaji Nagar and its surrounding communities as a reading room and will have a membership system for those who wish to borrow books and participate in the weekend activities. The football club will have a separate membership system.
The centre will be run by a coordinator, assisted by 2-3 college students from the community working as part-time employees. The football training will be conducted by 4-5 coaches selected from within the senior players of the FFC. Training in aspects of running the library and football coaching will be conducted for all part-time employees. The focus will be to strengthen their leadership and organisational skills. In the long run, they will be empowered to run the centre on their own.
A pool of volunteers for the centre will also be created for conducting the weekend activities. Preference will be given to students from the community and those working in locally active NGOs from the education field in order to strengthen community-building.
Where:
The centre will be located in Shivaji Nagar and will also serve the surrounding slum pockets in Baiganwadi and Govandi. The football club will utilise the grounds of a local school for the junior teams and a larger open public ground for the senior teams. In order to spread exposure about the centre and its activities there will be tie-ups with schools in the area as well as promotional sessions for the students of these schools, wherein activities similar to those at the centre will be conducted and students will be invited to try out the library as well.
When:
The centre will be open 6 days a week and will initially run in two shifts: 10 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. During these times patrons will be able to borrow books as well as utilise the space as a reading room. There will be extended hours on weekends for special events and activities. Football training will be held in the mornings for the senior players and evenings for the junior players at least three times a week, with tournaments during longer holidays.
How:
The centre aims to begin operations through crowd-funding and donors. Once fully-functional, we will look to register the organisation and obtain institutional funding along with creating a self-sustaining model through membership fees.
[1] All data regarding the community is from Social Economic Conditions and Vulnerabilities – A Report on the Baseline Survey of M(East) Ward, Mumbai (Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, 2015)
[2] While the Directorate of Libraries lists 622 public libraries under the Mumbai Division (Directorate of Libraries, 2017)the majority are outdated or non-functional.
There is one public library listed for Govandi but it appears to be non-functional. The only functional library in the area is run by TISS but it caters specifically to academic needs of older students (TISS, 2018).[3] For examples see (Owusu-Acheaw, 2014) and (Whitten, Labby, & Sullivan, 2016)
The Next Page 