This post is part of the ongoing series, Show and Tell, where we bring you photos and stories collected by Room to Read team members on the road. ***** It is already September 8, International Literacy Day, in many parts of the world and celebrations have already begun and will continue throughout the weekend. In partnership with the Education Resource Development Center Nepal, Room to Read Nepal spent Friday celebrating in Lalitpur in a festival they called DEAR: Drop Everything and Read. Check out some of their photos from the event! Join Room to Read in celebrating International Literacy Day... Continue reading

As kids in the U.S. head back to school, September is the perfect time to spotlight the huge gaps in global literacy–-793 million people worldwide cannot read or write--which is why Room to Read and OO.com have joined forces throughout September and beyond to not only raise awareness about this critical issue, but to allow people to make a difference while doing something they do most days...shop! OO.com (a Next Jump company) is a leading shopping site for over 30,000 top retail brands. Through their website, they have already raised over $1.2MM to help public school classrooms for our friends... Continue reading

This post is part of the ongoing series, Show and Tell, where we bring you photos and stories collected by Room to Read team members on the road. ***** Zaki Hasan, country director for Room to Read Bangladesh provided the photos for today’s Show and Tell, which features a recent round-table discussion on literacy that he and the rest of our Bangladesh team hosted in Dhaka last month. The discussion centered around the teaching of the Bengala language in primary schools and resulted in a list of recommendations from the participants regarding education policy, curriculum, material development, assessment, school culture... Continue reading

World Teachers' Day, celebrated each year on October 5, was established by UNESCO in 1994 to recognize the vital contribution that teachers make to education and development. In honor of World Teachers' Day today, we bring you the story of one teacher in Laos dedicated to ensuring her students gain the literacy skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond. She is one of hundreds of teachers participating in our Literacy Instruction program across Asia and Southern Africa, all of whom we celebrate today. ****** In many cases, our Literacy Instruction program finds teachers a little nervous to break... Continue reading

Over the past year, documentary filmmakers James Connolly and Rachelle Escaravage visited Room to Read projects throughout Asia. They met the children and communities that are benefitting from our programs, and recorded their stories on film. Now those stories are the subject of six mini-documentaries, each focusing on one aspect of Room to Read’s work promoting literacy and gender equality in education. Over the next six weeks, we’ll be releasing those videos one at a time—providing you with a closer look at our programs than ever before. The videos will take you to India, Laos, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, inside... Continue reading

Recently, on a trip to visit our programs in Sri Lanka, our team had a chance encounter with Nelka, a young waitress who, as it turns out, knows a thing or two about Room to Read. Reena Luke, our communications manager for Asia, shares her impressions of the team’s meeting with Nelka in a guest post from the field. ***** The A-9 highway is a busy truck route in Sri Lanka connecting Mannar in the northwest to the capital, Colombo. On most days, traffic is heavy and a sense of urgency abounds. Police stop vehicles at frequent intervals—checking papers and... Continue reading

Saroj Lama and Anita Bista are 5th grade students at the Shree Pratibha Primary School in the Kavre region of Nepal. Plagued by high illiteracy rates, the Kavre region also suffers from a widespread lack of awareness regarding proper health and sanitation. The streets are often littered with trash, putting the community, and children in particular, at risk for injury or disease. Anita and Saroj had never given much thought to the negative implications of their community’s sanitation issues until one day they came upon a book on the subject at their school’s Room to Read library. That day, the... Continue reading

As Ms. Sharon Chanda sings instructions to her class, her first grade students run to the mat at the front of the room to join her, one by one. It starts as a few students from the table underneath the mtondo (mango) sign scramble to the front of the room. They are soon joined by their classmates who sit below the dangling nanazi (pineapple). As they settle, they don’t miss a beat in the call and response routine. As Ms. Chanda calls out in Chinyanja, the language of instruction for these first graders in Zambia, the students sing back a... Continue reading

This post is part of the ongoing series, Show and Tell, where we bring you photos and stories collected by Room to Read team members on the road. ***** Today's show and tell is hot off the presses. Taken earlier today in New Delhi at the UNESCO Literacy Day 2011 celebration, it shows Wilfredo Pascual, global program officer for our Local Language Publishing program, accepting the 2011 Confucius Prize for Literacy on behalf of the entire Room to Read team. The award was presented by President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Dr. Qian Tang, Assistant Director-General for Education... Continue reading

On a recent trip to Laos, our Regional Director for Asia, Jon Beaulieu, signed a five-year agreement with the government of Laos to extend our programs there. He shares his thoughts on the experience, as well as our work in the country so far in a guest post from the field. ***** Last February, I went to Laos to meet with our team on the ground there to discuss Room to Read’s Global Strategy and how it can be localized to further our partnership with the government. The goal was to find ways to make a bigger impact in the... Continue reading

This post is part of the ongoing series, Show and Tell, where we bring you photos and stories collected by Room to Read team members on the road. ***** Today’s show and tell comes from Danielle Reichner, a senior global program operations officer based out of our San Francisco global headquarters. Danielle is currently traveling to several of our program sites in Asia, supporting our teams in-country as they plan their next year of operation. During her time in Cambodia, Danielle visited Chreav Primary School, where she witnessed a reading competition. Each child in the competition had memorized their favorite... Continue reading

In 2009, the United Nations officially declared July 18 as Nelson Mandela Day, which also happens to be Mandela’s birthday. As a birthday present to the man who spent 67 years in politics serving his people, South Africans and others around the world spend 67 minutes on July 18 in service of others. The hope is that their collective efforts will effect positive change in the world. Here at Room to Read, we are firm believers that small acts of service can have big results, so we asked our team in South Africa’s Eastern Cape how some of the members... Continue reading

From the earliest days of Room to Read, we have enjoyed a tradition of ringing a yak bell from Nepal in honor of each significant victory. Be it an investor funding a new school, a program milestone like our 10,000th library, or having made a key hire, the yak bell provides an opportunity for the Room to Read team to pause during very long days, take a deep breath, and celebrate with our colleagues. This week, there is a new bell to ring–the daily closing bell of the NASDAQ stock exchange. One of the key reasons for Room to Read’s... Continue reading

Although the civil war in Sri Lanka recently ended between the government and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers), a return to normalcy for most families has yet to occur. Passage through to the north of Sri Lanka is heavily monitored and individuals need special government clearance just to visit the area. The road to the war-torn Mannar District in the Northern Province, where Room to Read has been invited to work, is freshly tarred and empty of traffic except for an odd military truck or a land rover. Police check-posts are replaced with military check-posts... Continue reading

Last month, our communications manager, Reena Luke, visited Sri Lanka and met this wonderful family who taught their two daughters to develop a passion for reading and books; their passion was significantly fueled when Room to Read opened a library at the local primary school. Just two weeks ago, we sadly learned that the family has since been involved in a tragic moped accident which killed the father and put these two young girls in critical condition in the hospital. Our hearts go out to this family and in tribute to this wonderful father on Father’s Day (also celebrated in... Continue reading

Room to Read is in the midst of conducting a post-secondary transition study of our Girls’ Education Program. Researcher and guest blogger, Kirsten Anderson, traveled to India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia to interview girls who are currently enrolled in our Girls' Education program as well as those program alumnae and parents. Findings from this study will be released later this year. In celebration of Father’s Day, Kirsten shares her conversation with a grandfather and father in Cambodia. This is the third in the series of blog posts from her travels. (Read her previous posts here and here.) *** There is... Continue reading

 Last week, Room to Read held its annual Country Management Conference (CMC) in Bangladesh. The CMC is a time when Room to Read’s senior staff from our country, regional and global offices get together to share, learn, provide input and make decisions on important strategic and operational matters facing the organization and make plans for the year(s) ahead. Pierre Towns, Room to Read’s Chief Talent Officer, attending this year’s CMC for the first time and sent us his thoughts on the experience. *** The hallways and common areas of our hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh, were filled with excitement and... Continue reading

Room to Read’s Students Helping Students program started when students began raising awareness and funds on behalf of the organization following the 2005 Asian tsunami. Since then, schools and communities around the world have worked tirelessly to support Room to Read in big and small ways—from bake sales and read-a-thons to large-scale events, student groups have taken action on behalf of literacy and gender equality in education. *** As with many of our best relationships, our partnership with the John Eliot School, an elementary school in Needham, Massachusetts, came to us by way of a dedicated Room to Read chapter.... Continue reading

From April 30 to May 5, the 2011 Comparative International Education Conference (CIES) was held in Montreal, Quebec. The annual conference brings together professionals and academics in the field of international education to share research and exchange best practices. This year, four Room to Read staff members attended to present on the recent work the organization has been doing to promote literacy and reading skills. Headlining Room to Read's participation was Dhir Jhingran, our chief program officer for literacy who is based out of New Delhi, India. Joining him were Amrita Sengupta, South Asia regional literacy program manager; Stacey Warner,... Continue reading

Kamlari is a historically accepted social custom among the indigenous Tharu community in Nepal, in which poor families contract out their daughters into bonded labor. While the practice is now technically illegal, an estimated 20,000 Kamlari girls are still living as indentured laborers. Room to Read's Girls' Education program is one of the many levers of change being used to help free these girls and provide them with access to a quality education. Anita and Anju Tharu are two such girls. *** Winter in the flatlands of Bardiya can be quite unpredictable, especially when hanging laundry outside on the line.... Continue reading

In the 2009 Room to Read Girls’ Education Yearbook, we highlighted the story of a former scholar in Uttarakhand, India, named Hema. When we last met Hema, she was balancing a job as a primary school teacher while tutoring younger students in Room to Read's Girls’ Education Program to support herself financially through university. In 2010, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science, English literature, and history. She is the first person in her family to graduate from both high school and college. Hema’s boss at an outsourcing company where she now works allowed us to catch up... Continue reading

Many of the details were the same: the same 13 girls, the same month, even the same day. But it was a new year, and the difference felt by the girls, their families and Room to Read's Bangladesh team could hardly be greater. Where there was disappointment before, there was now excitement. It was the second time this cohort of girls had taken the public exam to complete 5th grade but this year, they had passed! Room to Read has been supporting these 13 girls—along with 219 of their peers in the sandbar islands of the Sirajganj district in Bangladesh—since... Continue reading

Room to Read went Hollywood a few weeks ago at the home of Will Ferrell and Viveca Paulin-Ferrell who hosted a beautiful event for us at their home in Los Angeles. We felt truly honored as this was the first charity fundraiser the Ferrell's have personally hosted at their house. Viveca along with event co-chairs, Lindsay Berger Sacks and Heidi Saffari, invited their friends and over 200 people turned out for an evening filled with familiar faces to raise money to support Room to Read. Will provided the opening act, Viveca served as auctioneer along with John Wood and with... Continue reading

Room to Read is conducting a post-secondary transition study of our Girls’ Education Program. Researcher and guest blogger, Kirsten Anderson, travelled to India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia to interview current Girls’ Education Program scholars, alumnae and their parents. In celebration of Mother’s Day in many countries, Kirsten shares her conversations with the mothers of some of our scholars in Nepal. This is the second in the series of blog posts from her travels (read her previous post here). Findings from the post-secondary study will be released later this year. *** Sitting in the shadow of the majestic Himalayas in Nepal,... Continue reading

Did you see the Room to Read deal in your inbox this morning? We hope at least some of you 33 million Groupon subscribers noticed! For the next five days, Groupon will be running a "deal" on our Girls' Education program—just in time for you to purchase that last minute Mother's Day gift. Join us and Groupon's G-Team and donate $10, $25, or $125 to help Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program support the education of the next generation of young women in eight developing nations. The deal is being matched by our friends at Atlassian up to $100,000. What... Continue reading