This small initiative by  Mirza Maryam a *12 years old girl* from Aurangabad Maharashtra is now spreading all over Maharashtra. Inspired by Maryam’s Mohalla libraries, even Telangana State Urdu Academy has opened a children’s corner for kids to develop reading habits among children.  This is a unique concept of micro library with micro funding introduced by Maryam.. Covid-19 has brought some positive as well as negative impact in the lives of all the students. The positive impact is that those who can afford have adopted the digital studies, whereas students staying in slum areas can’t afford the use of digital platforms so are unable to go ahead with the studies. Keeping this in mind a 7th standard student from Aurangabad district in Maharashtra has started a ‘Mohalla Library’ in a slum area. This is the first of its kind library started in Aurangabad. Mariyam says Just before the lockdown began; she had accompanied her father (Mirza Abdul Kayam) to visit Aurangabad’s famous Maulana Azad Library and Research Centre. After visiting the library she was disheartened to find that there was no children’s section in it and the library didn’t stock books for children. From that day she began borrowing books. One more thing that focused her to come up with this unique initiative is she used to see kids wasting their time and playing all the time when schools got closed due to covid. Post Covid many more libraries are opened in Aurangabad in Maharashtra. In order to attract kids and inculcate reading habits in them, Mohalla library has come up with a concept *”kitab padho aur inam paao”* which means read and win. This concept helped kids to reads books and as they were given gifts this initiative attracted many kids. Maryam’s father gifted her *150 books* last year. Now she has more than 150 books. She has kept all those books in the library. So now there are more than *500 books* in the library. The children take their favorite books home and return them in 3 days. Mirza Abdul Kayam, father of Maryam and a founder of city-based Read and Lead Foundation, said his daughter had a collection of books, which she decided to utilize for the benefit of the public. After she began a maiden Mohalla library for children up to 10th standard in the city, several such initiatives have come up in towns of *Jalna, Indore, Beed, Jalgaon, and Ahmednagar*. Even Telangana State Urdu Academy has opened a children’s corner for kids to develop reading habits in them. This initiative is helping to develop reading interest among the children, which is actually helping them to acquire knowledge and develop reading habits. This will inturn provide more readers to the existing big libraries, which will ultimately provide great leaders and good citizens to the community,society and nation in large.

Now children and parents in many towns are approaching Mariyam to get ideas and start their own libraries which will benefit the kids. Till now *more than 10,000 kids* have benefited from this noble initiative.

Maryam is on her mission with a slogan _*”Tum mujhe 10 hazar rupee do, main Tumhe ek library Dungi”*_ (Give me 10 Thousand rupees, I will give you one library). Maryam is determined to open more *25 libraries in year 2022.*