Hi Local Guides,
Today is celebrated as World Storytelling Day, along with International Day of Happiness (March 20th). As part of Let’s Empower Women Owned Businesses on Google Maps by @Globe_trotter_Ish and to celebrate Storytelling Day, I am thankful to introduce a woman business owner who started a community space and a reading room by her passion of her storytelling to children.
Let’s Meet Archana Gopinath.
Archana Gopinath from Trivandrum, a Civil Engineer by Profession and a Project Manager with 15+ years of experience in the Construction Industry, managing large scale construction projects in multiple cities.
Today, she runs The Reading Room which was established in 2016. It is a community space that focuses on language development, communication skills, interaction, creative writing, public speaking and community events. They work with children through regular classes and workshops to focus on these skills and also hold weekly free community events, bringing people together for various activities and sessions. They also work along with a few NGOs-education related foundations and therapists-participating in community activities, reading classes, language classes, and mental health related workshops and groups.
Let’s hear what Archana has to say:
- Can you tell us about your business and what inspired you to start a community space and a reading room together?
Font view of The Reading Room.
Answer : There are various aspects to my inspiration to start The Reading Room. An expertise in client communication, reporting, managing multiple stakeholders, project planning and communications training made me passionate about training, language development and confident expression in addition to my core subject. I knew that I wanted to have a space where I could focus on these very essential soft skills from an early age so that these became a part of one’s personality instead of something that needs special training later in life. My personal experience in Management taught me that once you are in a profession, a big part of your growth journey is based on communication skills. And I wanted to have a space where we learn to communicate and express ourselves confidently through practice and fun.
Secondly, as an army kid who grew up living in various parts of the country, I did not have a lot of forever friends in my life. So, very early on in my childhood, books became a big constant. I have spent days and nights on trains and stations without any issues as long as I had new books. I believe books have a big role to play in who I am and everything I have done, and I wanted to share that magic and positivity with this generation of kids who are born in an all-out tech world. Finally, once I had my child, I also realised that children these days have very few opportunities for unstructured and free interactions to develop their personality and interpersonal communication, and also to enjoy.
So eventually, I brought all these aspects together to start The Reading Room in 2016. Through The Reading Room we touch hundreds of lives every year providing everyone a space for safe expression. Through many different activities, workshops and events, we bring a whole array of creative expressions, be it written work, public speaking activities, theatre, or art and give everyone—children and grown-ups alike—a space to experiment with and find their own creative niche. Through various workshops and classes in schools and colleges, we take this aspect of creative expression to a much bigger group of children and youngsters as well.
- How do you think Google Maps has helped customers to discover and visit your business?
Answer : I am sure that in today’s day and age, no one goes to any place anymore without googling for it first. From showing the pictures of the place, to the directions to get there, I genuinely believe that almost every new person who has visited The Reading Room has definitely done so thanks to Google Maps leading them here.
- Can you describe what type of events and activities you host in your community space & how did you promote social connections with that?
Archana taking sessions on the events.
Answer : The activities, events and workshops as described earlier helps to bring people together to sit and talk, to slow down from their day to day pursuits, enjoy the finer things in life and most importantly to have a community to belong to.
The sessions for children are held on a regular basis as bi-weekly class, with different days for different age groups where we sit together and read books, discuss various aspects and perspectives from what we are reading. These classes take them through various modules designed to focus on various elements of creative writing, public speaking, group interactions, discussions, speeches, debates, story-building etc. through countless curated and fun activities.
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First of all, this helps children find a peer group that reads, enjoys books, and makes reading books and writing stories just as interesting and cool as all their other modern pursuits.
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Secondly, children get to step out of their everyday environment and interact with others who come from many different schools and systems. This gives them a wider perspective of their world.
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Conversations about their special interests, world history, Indian history, current events, and anything else on top of their heads are encouraged and attended to, with full seriousness, so that they have a patient, accepting, listening and ready-to-discuss audience, and they know that their interests and concerns are important and that they matter.
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We at the reading room believe that language and confident expression is best developed and strengthened through practice—thinking, feeling, expressing, creating and enjoying oneself in that language, just like we do with our mother tongues, and that is the principle on which every activity is developed.
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Similarly, for grown-ups, the weekly community events are free and open to all. People of various ages from all kinds of interests and experiences come together week after week for either a book club, a debate club, a movie club, open mics, writer’s corner, and many other workshops that are held at the space. This is a safe, judgement-free zone where people with specific interests can meet others, interact, talk, express themselves, be heard and most importantly, grow into a community that they keep coming back to every week.
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The various parenting as well as mental health support groups, conversations and workshops conducted by industry experts, therapists and trainers also are open and accessible to all and find a regular audience that are looking for a safe space to open up, share and find sustained help.
- How do your business support and include LGBTQIA+ individuals?
Answer : All our conversations, workshops, book-club picks, debate groups and all other activities have LGBTQIA+ 
themes on a regular and constant basis. We have had team members work with us at various times that identify and belong to the community. Many of our regular members and participants are members of the community. And our mental health events and community events also address LGBTQIA+ individuals. The Reading Room has a welcoming, open-door policy to all and constantly encourages conversations and activities involving everyone from every community. We do not allow for any sort of behaviour that can be seen as discriminatory or disrespectful in any regard.
- As a women owned business, how has your business helped new women entrepreneurs in your community?
Answer : As an event and workshop space, we have hosted a large number of workshops over the years by upcoming women entrepreneurs. From home-bakers, to writers, to many artists in various fields like madhubani paintings and calligraphy, to comic book making, to upcoming yoga teachers, therapists, and many many others have conducted their workshops and classes at The Reading Room for years and years now, slowly building their customer base and visibility and giving us a chance to host beautiful and varied communities here. From social media promotions, registration handling to any such necessary support is provided by The Reading room for these events. We also make it a point to not burden such entrepreneurs/trainers/artists with any lump sum rentals for their workshops. If any registration fee is set, the same is divided with a small portion going towards venue expenses, while the free events are not charged in order to support such enterprises.
- As a kid-friendly and wheelchair friendly, how do you come to make your business inclusively welcoming for customers?
Book shelves in The Reading Room with kid friendly chairs.
Answer : Well, the space was primarily meant for children and is full of books of various different genres and age groups that caters to people of all ages. The children’s section is arranged with the early reader books in the lowest shelves, gradually going higher with age. Children are able to walk around, touch, see, pull out and read any book they fancy to, as we believe it should be. We believe that restricting children from picking up and opening books to check them out is a sure way to deter them from wanting to read in the future. Reading should be made a welcoming, warm activity. The seating is very casual with carpets, cushions and child-sized cane chairs strewn around so they do not ever feel like they are in a Strict classroom environment.
Moreover, even our sessions are so designed that we cater to children of all interests. We have children who like to doodle the scenes from a story they are listening to as we read the same to them, to children who want to stop us at any moment in the reading to share their thoughts, ideas and assessments. Again, we believe that each child listens to stories and process ideas and information in their own manner, and allowing them to doodle, write, ask questions, share ideas etc etc are all very good and successful ways to ensure that they enjoy coming back and listening to more and more stories and express themselves more confidently. There are also small games, blocks, puzzles, flashcards and other items accessible to the children.
We have wheelchair access into the library space where a removable ramp is placed whenever required, making sure everyone can access the library and meet-up areas.
Thank you Archana for giving such a valuable interview about your business.
Share such amazing stories of women owned businesses in this Story Telling and Happiness Day.
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Thanks for sharing 
.