Knowledge is power
Somewhere in the corner of your house a hard-bound leather book hopefully awaits that someday it will be remembered by someone, picked off its dust, cleaned and read with joy. This book never sees the light of the day and is usually forgotten or ends up being used as a coffee stand or a paper weight. We all have that one book at home which is read once and forgotten by you for the rest of your life and then sadly ends up at a rag picker’s bag, devalued, torn and wasted of the attention it actually deserves. Don’t you ever feel like putting that book to a more fruitful purpose rather than seeing it end up being mishandled and eaten away by rats? Many children in India lose out the chance to literacy or education because of a minimal presence of books in their life at an early stage. The small story book that we used to read as children or the old moral science book at school which taught us the difference between wrong and right, one way or the other any book that you donate would be held by a tiny hand with big dreams. Shades of Happiness Foundation (SOHF) plans to help you with it.

Shades Of Happiness Foundation (SOHF), is a youth driven social organization which promotes the ideology to educate, enable & empower the impoverished sections of the society and successfully establish a new order of inclusive society. Following its ideas, the organization has been organizing a book donation drive since the past years. After spearheading successful book donation drive last year, it has now been activated yet again through drop boxes placed at colleges, corporate and residential apartments. A book donation is a great way to provide support to a charitable cause without having to incur a direct out of pocket expense. Since you've already purchased the books, the gift won't cost you anything. However, your generosity can have a positive impact on the children that receive the books. The importance of reading on a child is quite incalculable. It is one of the life's greatest

pleasures that open the door to culture, knowledge and independence of the underprivileged child who could not afford them in the first place. Information contained in books has tremendous influences on perception, socialization and transformation of the kids who benefit from your donation. SOHF plans to organize this year’s Donation drive (Books, Stationary & Electronic Gadgets) in colleges across Delhi/NCR from OCTOBER 16 TO OCTOBER 18, 2013. The drive hopes to see a number of top colleges of Delhi University participate in the form of SRCC, Hindu, Miranda House, St. Stephens, Ramjas, Hansraj, JMC, LSR along with other universities like IP, JNU, Jamia Milia Islamia. Top engineering colleges in Delhi like IIT Delhi, NSIT, IGIT have also extended their support. Other than that drop box will be placed in various societies, offices, RWAs etc to involve contribution from all domain of society.

DONATION ITEMS INCLUDE: - Pens, pencils, geometry items, - Colour pencils, colour sketch pens, crayons, - Old or new academic books, - Old or new storybooks, novels, - Notebooks, registers, notepads, ruled sheets etc. - Electronic gadgets like computer, laptop, projector, etc.

Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year. Statistics reveal that during the summer break; low-income students lose more than two months of reading achievement. The BOOK DRIVE hopes to collect large number of books and stationery which will be distributed to underprivileged kids, old-age homes, orphanages and among the students of SOHF later to promote reading and spread the joy of knowledge in society. Subsequent drives to distribute these books to people belonging to economically weaker sections will also be organized in and around Delhi-NCR region. SOHF plans to collect more than 1lac books and to touch atleast 35000 households both in terms of benefactors and beneficiaries. This is a firm step in coordinated cooperation between rich n poor to seek more inclusive growth. Your book could go a long way in shaping his/her future. Reading has a crucial role to play in creating independent learners, literacy promotion and educational attainment of individuals in every society in the world.

For any suggestion or query, feel free to contact: Mayank Tyagi - +91-9560556901 Or write us at info@shadesofhappiness.org . Website : http://shadesofhappiness.org/ Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/shadesofhappiness

Help a child read the books that you don’t need.