That morning the school seemed quiet, some children came up to us. "Kaka Nona, today we have a day off from school, my father and I want to go to the garden to pick corn," they greeted. The day before we had visited the house of one of the teachers in Lamma Village, but he was away in the garden. This month is indeed the time to harvest corn and other garden products, considering that soon it will move into a long dry season, the green hills that we see today will turn yellow because everything dries up.

That day we again visited Tulay Elementary School in Lamma Village, Northwest Pantar District - Alor Regency, NTT. The school, which is simply roofed with reeds and consists of 3 classrooms, has been established since last year. Sixteen of our little friends (grades 1, 2 and 3) always enliven the atmosphere amidst the wind on the coast every day, but we feel very lonely when we set foot in the school.

"Mom, wait a minute eee, I call the children first. Mr. Yahya is also coming soon," Mrs. Dorcas greeted us hurriedly as she approached us in front of the school. While waiting for the children to come, Mrs. Dorkas told us that our friend from WWF came the other day to meet with parents and parents in the village.

Indeed, in February, our colleagues and also volunteers in Alor agreed to share the task of building children's interest in reading, one of which is to encourage local people to care about the importance of reading. It started with a light conversation about the potential of the sea in Alor Regency, then moved on to a serious conversation about how to manage it all and make local residents the main actors. Until finally we came up with the idea to build a library with the theme "The Coast is My Home" for elementary school children, because we can build character and knowledge since we are in elementary school.

Shortly after that, the children began to arrive in full uniform "red and white" of course. "Good morning children!" greeted Mrs. Dorcas in the classroom. "Morning, morning, morning, yes!" they answered loudly.

Small and sweet smiles came out of the faces of SD Tulay warriors. Then with enthusiasm we sang a good morning song, "Good morning everyone, greetings. Say hello to your right and left, salam-salam."

I took out some picture cards from my bag. The cards contained pictures of marine life and their characteristics. "My name is Celo, I have a very strong carapace suit, have you seen me?" Jonas asked his friends. "That's a turtle, I used to go to the sea with my father," Alelang replied. That's how we played to get to know marine life.

Under the big tree, we read the book "Fairy Tales Under the Sea". They began to recognize the octopus as Mona who released black ink to scare her friends. There is also a shark as a familiar friend of Lili, the little nemo fish in the sea.

In addition to the book, we also brought several other books to fill the library at SD Tulay. In the previous month, the local community agreed to donate wood to build bookshelves in the library. Therefore, when we return next month to share stories with the children, the books are already neatly installed on simple wooden bookshelves.

While accompanying the children to read the books, we and the teachers there made an agreement to include the Story Telling program as a school activity. Through this program, children can be more active in reading books, practice courage in telling stories in front of the class, encourage children to care more about the coastal and marine environment. Once again, reading is truly a window to the world, where children can see the world, learn many things from reading.

Children learn very quickly about biota and nature by reading. However, the availability of storybooks about marine life is very difficult to find here. Hopefully we can continue to bring new picture storybooks for them to read.

Author: Ade Novia Putri (Community Development Officer for Solor-Alor)