ROOM TO READ

2.6 million 3 million 978,000 1.4 million 9,232 2.6 million 18 million USD1.19 trillion 579,000 809,000 9.5

In 1998, while trekking in Nepal, John Wood visited a primary school of around 450 children. The absence

Give-a-book, take-a-book. This can be organised just about anywhere. Guests pay a small entry fee, socialise and discuss their favourite book, and then each person chooses a book to take home

Room to Read requires the host governments to support their projects, and so they actively work with education ministries to promote widespread policy and curriculum changes which allow the organisation to effectively address illiteracy and gender inequality on a national scale.

Having achieved its initial aim of supporting the education of 10 million children, the next goal is to reach 15 million by 2020. Wood affirms that Room to Read has to keep up its strong mission focus and financial efficiency (83 percent of all its proceeds go into new or existing projects): “The main thing we’ve got to do is not be complacent – we want to keep growing our impact both quantitatively and qualitatively.”

As of the beginning of 2017, Room to Read is growing rapidly in Indonesia, and is also being launched in Jordan and Rwanda through a technical assistance arm called Room to Read Accelerator. Nevertheless, there is much work still to be done, and it is this understanding that continues to drive Room to Read to improve and expand.

On a parting note, Wood says: “You don’t have to be a millionaire like Bill Gates to change the world.” Whether it is the people on the ground improving literacy in their communities

The effect of illiteracy is far-reaching: Correlations have been drawn between illiteracy and criminality, child marriage and declines in countries’ GDPS

286 million

INDIA

The White Tiger (India, 2009)

A poor Indian villager journeys from servitude to success as a prosperous businessman. The character is a representation of what India could become, shedding its history of poverty and caste conflict.

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