How a Maulana's piggy bank initiative for 15 years has helped children afford books

Mumbai: At a time when kids are glued to smartphones, gadgets and online games, a maulana from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has distributed more than 50,000 piggy banks for kids enabling them to collect money and purchase books.

And the initiative is yielding results.

Maulana Mirza Abdul Qayyum Nadvi, the President of the Read and Lead Foundation, has launched a unique initiative called 'Save Money, Read Books’ - under which piggy banks are distributed to school children.

“Books are our best friends. We have to ensure that the new generation loves books. Our initiative is just a small effort…we have been doing it for the last 15 years,” Nadvi told DH.

The program integrates financial literacy with the promotion of literature.

The campaign, run in association with the Maryam Mirza Mohalla Library, involves distributing free piggy banks to high school students, encouraging them to save money for the sole purpose of buying books.

“The foundation has achieved a significant milestone, having distributed over 50,000 piggy banks to students and families across Aurangabad. The ambitious long-term goal is to reach one lakh students in various schools throughout the city,” Nadvi said, adding that the parents and local citizens are appreciating the cause.

The latest phase of the campaign saw the distribution of 108 piggy banks to students at Zilla Parishad School in Aurangpura in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, earlier known as Aurangabad.

The students have been specifically urged to collect money received from parents and relatives during the upcoming Diwali school holidays in these banks.

"The habit of watching TV and browsing the Internet has taken students away from books," stated Nadvi.

"This practice is not a burden, as students are saving from the pocket money given by their parents," he added.

To provide a convenient avenue for students to spend their savings, Nadvi has announced that when schools reopen after the Diwali break, the Read and Lead Foundation will organize a Book Exhibition at the school premises.

Students are encouraged to use their saved money to purchase books related to their syllabus or those that will enhance their educational standard. They retain the flexibility to buy books from any book exhibition in the city.

“This ground-breaking initiative, leveraging micro-savings to cultivate a love for reading, is poised to become a revolutionary step in promoting books and a lifelong reading habit among the youth of Aurangabad,” he said.

There are several success stories.

Abul Hasan Ali, a post-graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in and is currently a District Coordinator for UNICEF in Jharkhand, said :When we were in school, Maulana Mirza Sahab used to bring piggy banks to our school, Iqra Boys Urdu High School. All of us students used to deposit money in them. We used the money to buy books,” he said.

Sania, a class VII student at Naregaon Municipal High School, says that we developed a passion for reading only because of the piggy banks provided in the school.

Nasreen Qadri, a teacher at Al-Huda School, says that this is a unique and touching initiative to create interest and awareness about books among students.

It may be mentioned, Nadvi’s daughter Mariyam Mirza, a Class XI student of Maulana Azad College, has been conferred with a Special Award by the Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Akademi, for her initiative of Mohalla Library that she started during the Covid-19 pandemic.