Articles
You Say You Want a Revolution?
\r\n"We are too poor to afford education. But until we have education, how will we ever not be poor?"\r\n\r\n- Headmaster in rural Nepal\r\n\r\nIt is such a simple solution to the issue of global poverty: Teach a child to read and you could vastly improve not only his or her life, but also the life of the family and..\r\n
01.28.09
Nearly 800 million people in the developing world are illiterate.In just eight years, Room to Read, an NGO I helped found, has already had a positive effect on the livesof almost 2 million children in eight countries across Asia and Africa. We started with a donkey load of donated books and have since developed a widespread web of programs giving children opportunities to learn and read and finally have the awareness that they have choices-choices about how they want to live, what they want to do with their lives, and how they want to better their community. We view education as a hand up, not a handout, and we require active participation in building and running the schools and libraries funded by our organization. Our programs are extremely affordable-$250 will allow a girl to attend school for a year, and $25,000 will pay for construction of an entire school. I am not trying to give Room to Read a pat on the back, but attempting to illustrate how capable we are, in this generation of wealth creation, to attack global poverty directly, effectively, and cost-effectively.For millions of children in the poorest parts of the world, there are no schools, no libraries, no books, and no teachers. Every day we don't help is a day we don't get back. The clock is ticking. I believe, and I hope, that we can do better. If so, we will pick a generation up out of poverty. If not, our ancestors will look back and wonder whether we lacked foresight, or courage, or both.
NOW WHATGet involved with bringing libraries to the developing world at roomtoread.org