NBF to promote reading habit among prisoners

National Book Foundation (NBF) has set up a first ever 'free mind book club' in Adiala Jail to promote reading habits among the prisoners. An official of NBF told APP that the 'free mind book club' established in the cell number 11 is the place where Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani spent his time and wrote a book "Chah-e-Yousaf Se Sada." Three separate sections of free mind book club were opened in Adiala jail each for women, men and juvenile prisoners, he said.
The book club was made functional with the co-operation of Jail Superintendent, Saeedullah Gondal, Additional Superintendent, Asad Warraich and Deputy Superintendent, Haji Saif. The members of this book club and their children will be able to get books on discount prices from the NBF bookshops across the country.
If any of the prisoner of book club wants to write letter to the writer, it will be sent to the respective writer with the permission of the jail superintendent. While the books required by the prisoners will also be provided to them, the official said.
The foundation will strive to minimise the sentence of those prisoners who are more inclined towards reading books and writing letters. NBF will implement the idea of book clubs by establishing Village book clubs, Children book clubs, City book clubs and Travellers book clubs across the country. Besides, NBF has established village book clubs in different parts of Sindh including Mithi and Tharparkar to build a book reading oriented society, the official said.
The first village book club in Mithi is dedicated to Benazir Bhutto since she was a gifted writer apart from being political writer. For the book clubs in Mithi and Tharparkar, books were donated by eminent poets and writers like Amjad Islam Amjad, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Shabnam Shakil, Dr Ajmal Niazi, Ali Qazi, Fiaz Baqir Rizvi, Senator Maula Bux Chandyo and Mazhar-ul-Islam himself.
The objective behind establishing book clubs was to provide reading environment to writers, artists and book lovers of rural areas as "Reading is a pathway to peace and harmony.
Reading of books will help them understand values and cultures of other communities, thus leading them to tolerance and mutual co-existence, the official said". Besides Sindh, NBF will also open book clubs in Punjab, Balochistan and NWFP. NBF will also assign its book ambassadors, celebrities from different fields to visit these clubs to invoke an urge for reading, the official said.