Company type | Non-profit organization |
---|---|
Industry | Education |
Founded | 2000 |
Headquarters | |
Key people |
|
Revenue | 44,679,630 United States dollar (2016) |
Website | www.roomtoread.org |
This article reads like a press release or a news article and may be largely based on routine coverage .(February 2020) |
Room to Read is a global non-profit organization. The organization focuses on working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments to improve literacy and gender equality in education. [1]
Room to Read has reached more than 39 million children and has worked in 24 countries. [2] [3]
Room to Read was co-founded and launched by John Wood, Erin Keown Ganju and Dinesh Shrestha in 1999 after Wood visited several local schools in Nepal. He observed the teachers' and students' enthusiasm and lack of resources, which lead him to quit his job and build a global team to create sustainable programs that help solve their education challenges [4] [5]
Wood and Shrestha worked with rural communities to build schools called School Room and established libraries called Reading Room. They later expanded beyond libraries, to begin the Girls' Education program in 2000, which focuses on young girls and provides a long-term commitment to their education. [4]
In 2001, Ganju launched Room to Read in Vietnam. [6] Since then, Room to Read's operations have expanded to include 20 countries.
Room to Read's Literacy Program supports literacy development for primary school students. The organization works with local authors and illustrators to create and distribute children's books. [7] It also introduced an online learning platform called Literacy Cloud during the COVID-19 pandemic. [1]
Through its Girls' Education Program, Room to Read supports girls with resources, mentorship and a life skills curriculum that helps them overcome challenges to education. [8]
Since its inception in 2000, Room to Read has reached more than 39 million children in underserved communities around the world: [9]
Literacy is the ability to read and write. Broadly, literacy may be viewed as "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices. Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some purpose. Beliefs about reading and writing and their value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced.
The US Library of Congress Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, to promote literacy, libraries, and reading and an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature. The Center for the Book is mainly supported by tax-deductible donations. In 1984, the center began creating affiliated State Centers for the Book. Today, the Center for the Book has an affiliate center in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Molly Melching is the founder and Creative Director of the Tostan Community Empowerment Program (CEP). Tostan is a non-governmental organization (NGO) headquartered in Dakar, Senegal whose mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. Her website, Tostan.org, states "Tostan implements a holistic, three-year empowering education program in African national languages that has engaged over 3,500 rural communities in eight African countries on themes of democracy, human rights, health, literacy, and project management skills". These themes include the abandonment of female genital cutting, the abolishment of child/forced marriage, and female empowerment in leadership positions such as leadership positions in countries across West and East Africa.
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF) is the oldest and largest non-profit children's literacy organization in the United States. RIF provides books and reading resources to children nationwide with supporting literacy resources for educators, families, and community volunteers.
Camfed is an international non-governmental, non-profit organization founded in 1993 whose mission is to eradicate poverty in Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women. Camfed programs operate in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi.
International Literacy Day is an international observance, celebrated each year on 8 September, that was declared by UNESCO on 26 October 1966 at the 14th session of UNESCO's General Conference. It was celebrated for the first time in 1967. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. Celebrations take place in several countries.
Pratham is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India. It was co-founded by Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay. It works towards the provision of quality education to the underprivileged children in India. Established in Mumbai in 1995 to provide pre-school education to children in slums, Pratham today has interventions spread across 23 states and union territories of India and has supporting chapters in the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden, and Australia.
The Dollywood Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Dolly Parton, with headquarters in Sevierville, Tennessee. Shortly after the opening of the Dollywood theme park in 1986, the Dollywood Foundation was created in April 1988, and began by offering scholarships to local high school students. From there it grew into the Imagination Library, started in 1995, which distributes free books to children monthly, up until the age of 5. The Dollywood Foundation grew again into the My People Fund, which started in 2016 after wildfires ripped through Tennessee. The current President of the Dollywood Company is Craig Ross. Today, the foundation continues to grant scholarships and awards, and provides support to numerous non-profit organizations that aim to improve the quality of life of children and others in need.
ProLiteracy, also known as ProLiteracy Worldwide, is an international nonprofit organization that supports literacy programs that help adults learn to read and write. Based in Syracuse, New York, ProLiteracy has slightly less than 1,000 member programs in the U.S. and works with 21 partners in 35 developing countries.
The Citizens Foundation (TCF) is a non-profit organization, and one of the largest privately owned networks of low-cost formal schools in Pakistan. The foundation operates a network of 1,833 school units, educating 280,000 students through over 13,000 teachers and principals, and over 17,400 employees. Approximately 94% of the foundation's expenditure is allocated to the Education program. In addition, TCF also conducts a literacy and numeracy skill development program in communities linked to its schools which has taught reading and writing to over 160,000 adults.
The UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy recognizes the activities of outstanding individuals, governments or governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in literacy serving rural adults and out-of-school youth, particularly women and girls. The Prize was established in 2005 through the support of the Government of the People's Republic of China in honour of the great Chinese scholar Confucius. It is part of the International Literacy Prizes, which UNESCO awards every year in recognition of excellence and inspiring experiences in the field of literacy throughout the world. The Confucius Prize offers two awards of US$20,000 each, a medal and a diploma, as well as a study visit to literacy project sites in China.
John J. Wood is an American activist who was the founder of two global education charities: Room to Read and U-Go. Wood started Room to Read in 2000 after quitting his executive position as Microsoft's director of business development for the greater China region. Along with his co-founders Erin Ganju and Dinesh Shrestha, he built out a global team that has raised over $750 million in funding commitments and has brought education programs to over 26 million children in 20 low income countries.
Skateistan is a non-profit organization that uses skateboarding and education to empower children. Over 2,500 children, aged 5–17, attend Skateistan's programs in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. 50% of students are girls. Through their innovative programs, Outreach, Skate and Create, Back-to-School, Dropping In and Youth Leadership, Skateistan aims to give children the opportunity to become leaders for a better world. Skateistan has Skate Schools in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Johannesburg, South Africa. The international headquarters is in Berlin, Germany.
Child Aid is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Portland, Oregon, working to promote literacy in Latin America. According to Child Aid's mission statement, the organization works to "create opportunity for Latin America's rural and indigenous poor through childhood literacy and education programs."
Worldreader is a 501(c)(3) global nonprofit organization working with partners to get children reading at least 25 books a year with understanding.
MediaSmarts is a Canadian non-profit organization and registered charity based in Ottawa, Ontario, that focuses on digital and media literacy programs and resources. In particular, the organization promotes critical thinking via educational resources and analyzes the content of various types of mass media.
The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Boynton Beach, Florida. Its stated mission is to improve literacy in Palm Beach County. One in seven adults in Palm Beach County is unable to read and understand information found in books, newspapers, magazines, brochures and manuals. The organization's operates with the assistance of over 9,000 volunteers. In 2013, the Literacy Coalition provided services to more than 25,000 adults, to children and families.
Marko Stojanović is a Serbian celebrity, theatre and TV actor and comedian, renown mime artist, and university professor, director, humanitarian and sports worker. He is the co-founder and the president of the World Mime Organisation.
Rana Dajani is a Palestinian-Jordanian molecular biologist and tenured professor of biology and biotechnology at Hashemite University. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Iowa. Dajani is an expert on genetics of Circassian and Chechen populations in Jordan, also on conducting genome-wide association studies on diabetes and cancer on stem cells. Her work in stem cell research initiated the development of the Stem Cell Research Ethics Law and all regulations in Jordan. She is an advocate for the biological evolution theory in relation to the religion of Islam, and believes strongly in the education and empowerment of women, being a member of the United Nations Women Jordan Advisory Council. She is the recipient of the Jordan's Order of Al Hussein for Distinguished Contributions of the Second Class.
The UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education is an award, recognizing outstanding contributions to the advancement of female education. Supported by the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the Prize is conferred annually to two laureates. The prize awards USD 50,000 to each laureate to further their work in the area of girls’ and women’s education. Laureates are nominated by Member States, in consultation with their National Commissions, as well as non-governmental organizations in official partnership with UNESCO. They are recognized by UNESCO's Director General.