'Way of Life': Transforming Homes Into Libraries To Curb School Dropouts
Not only needy children, but also parents from big, international schools also come to take books, says Priyanka Garg.
Published : January 28, 2026 at 6:55 PM IST
|Updated : January 28, 2026 at 7:49 PM IST
Faridabad: In Faridabad, Haryana, an initiative known as the Free Book Bank is ensuring that financial constraints should never stand in the way of learning. Founded by Priyanka Garg, a Chartered Accountant, the book bank houses millions of volumes ranging from nursery textbooks to advanced UPSC preparation materials.
Driven by the belief that every student deserves the right to education, Garg’s mission is to eliminate dropouts caused by lack of resources.
In a conversation with ETV Bharat, Priyanka Garg said, "I started the book bank in 2018 and registered an NGO called 'Way of Life'. At that time, a maid worked at my house. She needed books for her children. The maid asked me for books. I told her that my children were older and her children were still young, so I didn't have those specific books, but I would try to arrange them.”
“After that, I posted the requirement in my society's WhatsApp group. After the message, I started receiving more messages in the group from people saying they needed books for their maids' children. So I thought, why not arrange the books? I started collecting books from within my society," she said.
The housing society's WhatsApp group for help responded with overwhelming support. Despite its success, the project faced significant hurdles. After being asked to vacate their initial storage space at a local community centre, Garg took the bold step of converting her own home into a functioning book bank.
Today, helped by a team of passionate women volunteers, the Way of Life Foundation continues to expand its reach, proving that a single request for help can evolve into a movement that empowers.
Priyanka Garg explains, "We appealed to people through social media, asking them to donate any old books they had already read or that were lying unused at home. We requested them not to sell or throw them away, but to donate them to us. After that, we started receiving calls, and we began collecting books from various locations. Today, people from all over Delhi-National Capital Region donate books to us, and we have books ranging from nursery class to those for competitive exams like the UPSC."
She added, "First, we contact people through phone calls, then through social media and by setting up camps in different places. We ask them to donate the books their children have already read so that other children can benefit from them. The sole purpose is to make books available to needy children."
How are the books distributed?
Priyanka says, "We keep a record of every student who comes to us, including their Aadhaar card and school ID card. Then we give them books. However, this work requires a lot of people. That's why the children who take books from us, or the NGOs to whom we give books, also help us in our work. And in this way, we have a team of over 100 volunteers who do this work."
"People from Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Karnataka, and other places have requested books from us, and we have delivered those books to them. Besides this, we received a call from Ghana in West Africa, where they requested certain books," she added.
"The biggest problem in sending books is how to ship them. For this, we are looking for sponsors, and we have also written to the government to make it duty-free. We are also looking for donors who transport containers internationally. Our books won't fill an entire container, but even a small part of a container is proving difficult to arrange. We need to send books not only within our country but also abroad," she said.
Priyanka explains, "When we started this, we thought that only needy children would come. But today, parents of children from big schools, international schools, and national schools also come to us to take books." Recently, an Intelligence Bureau officer, who had enrolled his children in a private school, also came to us and took books for his children.
"I am doing as much as I can, and I will continue to do so. But I want to expand this initiative on a much larger scale so that no student is deprived of education due to a lack of books. Therefore, I want the government to help us so that we can take this campaign forward on a larger scale," she maintained.
Vibha Agarwal, who came to collect books, said, "I came to know about the book bank six months ago. Since then, I have been getting books for my children from here. Whether it's academic books or storybooks, I always get them from here. We get the books for free here. We don't have to pay any charge for them."
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