Room To Read - People Who Care
World Change Starts With Educated Children - this simple, yet powerful statement is the corner stone upon which Room To Read was built. With the school year already beginning for many, it's seems natural to feature an extraordinary non-profit whose mission is to provide books and libraries and pursue other educational initiatives for children in rural and poor communities throughout Asia and Africa. Through the opportunities that only education can provide, Room To Read strives to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time. Their goal is to intervene early in the lives of these children, while employing the "give a man a fish / teach a man to fish" maxim.
Founder and CEO John Wood is a former Microsoft executive who gave up cushy corporate life to change the world... literally! What began as an exotic vacation and a break from corporate life, Wood's 1998 trip to Nepal put him face-to-face with the most abject poverty he had ever seen. Trekking through cold Himalayan mountain passes that took him from one poor, remote village to another, Wood recalled the words of his one-time Kellogg professor, Gene Lavengood: "To whom much is given, much is expected." The lesson hit home as he stared into the faces of children who rushed up to him as he entered their communities; children so poor they were beyond asking for money. They just wanted a pencil.
In a country of contrasts - the majesty of the Himalayas, the mystery of the jungles, and the tragedy of a country where most people live on less than $1 a day, Nepal is home to some of the warmest people in the world and is rich with both Hindu and Buddhist culture. However, it is also a country where half of its people live in poverty and where over 55% of its population is illiterate.
Haunted by the magnitude of Nepal's poverty and lack of available education, Wood organized a book drive upon his return home. Just a year later, he returned to the Nepalese village that had inspired him, bringing thousands of books to this remote community. The children's enthusiasm and desire to learn was so overwhelming, Wood was moved to quit his job, founded Room to Read, and dedicate his life to this mission.
Under his guidance, Room to Read has developed five programs focused on expanding or building schools and libraries, providing girls with scholarships, teaching languages and publishing in local languages. The organization works closely with local communities to determine the greatest needs and meet them.
Libraries are the core of Room to Read's program. Each library has between 300 and 1,000 books in the local language and in English. Each $150 donation enables it to print 150 local language children books; $4,000 opens a reading room; and $14,000 can build an entire library. The Room to Grow scholarship program also enables the organization to educate a girl who would otherwise miss out on school for just $250 a year.
Wood says, "Room to Read's goal is to help ten million children gain an education. That's the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Education is a hand up, not a handout. We've built an organization that applies business principles to philanthropy; including the principle of scale... we build schools, we work with communities using volunteer (but required) parental labor. If you want a school in your village we'll help you, but you have to roll up your sleeves and dig the foundation and carry the cement yourself. We're also establishing bilingual libraries, because we want kids to be able to read and write in their mother tongues and in English. We're very data-and performance-driven. We're in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, South Africa and Zambia. So far we've opened 444 schools and we'll be at 700 by the end of this year. We've opened 5,100 bilingual libraries and will more than double that in the next three years. We have 4,000 girls in a long-term scholarship program, which will increase to 7,000 this year."
Room To Read is now one of the fastest growing, most effective, and award-winning non-profits of the last decade, touching the lives of over 1.7 million children through their work to date. John Wood has been recognized in the worldwide media as a "21st century Andrew Carnegie," building a public library infrastructure to help the developing world break the cycle of poverty through the lifelong gift of education.
As our own children head back to school, exercise their minds and learn about the world around them, we can all help in realizing John Wood's goals of more libraries, more schools and more opportunities to educate children in developing countries by supporting Room To Read simply by purchasing all your own 'back to school' clothes and supplies right here at nonprofitshoppingmall.com.
