bottom Children participate in
literacy instruction activities in
Bangladesh. Room to Read has
worked extensively in rural areas
in the country
Right Children reading together in
India. Room to Read India launched
in 2003 and it is now their largest
operating region
“What we are all about
is making sure that kids
everywhere... are given an
opportunity to gain the
lifelong gift of education”
John Wood
THEIR AIM
Describing the aim of the organisation,
Wood said, “At its heart, what we
are all about is making sure that
kids everywhere, regardless of the
circumstances of their birth, are given
an opportunity to gain the lifelong gift
of education.” To this ambitious end,
the organisation has two core focuses.
The first is to develop literacy
skills among primary school children,
enabling them to progress into further
education, and to nurture their habit of
reading, which instils a desire to learn
and to pursue a brighter future. This
is done through the implementation
of the Literacy Programme which
includes training local teachers, the
provision of quality reading materials
for children in their own languages,
and the establishment of child-friendly
classrooms and libraries within
government schools.
The second objective is to
educate girls, thereby improving
gender equality. Considering that
two-thirds of children out of school
are girls, Wood identified this as an
issue to be specifically confronted:
“Education allows a woman to grow
in self-confidence, to earn an income,
to take care of her family, and as weof children’s books struck Wood
profoundly, particularly after the
explanation from the school’s
headmaster, who said: “In Nepal we
are too poor to afford education, but
until we have education we will always
be poor.” It was a cruel catch-22:
an inescapable cycle of poverty that
echoed what Wood had seen in other
underdeveloped countries.
This experience prompted the
beginnings of Room to Read. A year
later, Wood returned to the school
with 3,000 books on the back of six
rented donkeys, much to the delight
of the children and headmaster. He
would later give up his job at Microsoft
and commit full time to the cause of
fighting global illiteracy. Recalling this
in an interview, he said, “Too much of
philanthropy is done through hobbies...
the business person in me thought,
if I’m going to scale this and make a
difference, ten or a hundred libraries
won’t be enough.” Bringing in a focus
and efficiency acquired through his
background in business, Wood and his
other co-founders rapidly expanded
Room to Read in size and reach. Since
that first library was opened in Nepal,
the organisation has helped establish
18,700 across Asia and Africa.