On 17th September 2025 Dr the Honourable Roodal Moonilal Minister of Energy and Energy Industries and Member of Parliament for the Constituency of Oropouche East read the story of t ‘The Gruffalo’ to students of the St. Dominic’s Penal Roman Catholic School at the Debe Public Library, a branch of the National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS). The reading was done as part of International Literacy Day 2025 celebrations hosted by NALIS under the theme of “Promoting Literacy in the Digital Era.”

At the read-aloud session, the group of standard two students were fascinated by the variety of animals in the story and eagerly followed along, curious to see what a clever mouse would do next. At the end of the story Minister Moonilal shared with the students that despite being the tiniest animal in the book, the crafty mouse in the story used his intelligence to navigate each situation. Minister Moonilal stated, “Although you are small and not as strong and big or powerful as another person or creature, you still have intelligence, you are still very bright, you are still very smart and can defend yourself with your knowledge. That is why you must read a lot and at this time use your devices so that you will be knowledgeable about the digital era and literacy is the bedrock of all education.”

After the session, the children used the library’s computer section to access the ‘NALIS Overdrive’ a catalogue of the library’s digital books which include ‘Dogman’ by Dav Pilkey, ‘The Babysitters Club’ by Ann Martin and ‘Wings of Fire’ by Tui Sutherland. The online collection consists of e-books, audio books and books for readers of all ages, from a variety of genres including suspense, business, romance, fiction, non-fiction, fantasy and folklore.

Minister Moonilal was presented with his very own library card by student Selena Evelyn and in closing took the opportunity to commit to the donation of books and support to the library which falls under his Constituency of Oropouche East.

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Dr the Honourable Roodal Moonilal Minister of Energy and Energy Industries reads the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson to standard two students of St. Dominic’s Penal Roman Catholic School at the Debe Public Library.

Dr the Honourable Roodal Moonilal Minister of Energy and Energy Industries reads the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson to standard two students of St. Dominic’s Penal Roman Catholic School at the Debe Public Library.

Selena Evelyn, pupil at the St. Dominic’s Penal Roman Catholic School at the Debe Public Library presents Minister Moonilal with a library card.

Dr the Honourable Roodal Moonilal Minister of Energy and Energy Industries browses the collection of digital books available at NALIS at the library’s computer section.

Dr the Honourable Roodal Moonilal Minister of Energy and Energy Industries and pupils of the St. Dominic’s Penal Roman Catholic School at the Debe Public Library.