About Us - Overview

Mission

We partner with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, providing education to girls and establishing computer labs. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations. Through the opportunities that only education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.

Brief History

John Wood, Founder and CEO, launched Room to Read after a trek through Nepal. He visited several local schools and was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers, but also saddened by the shocking lack of resources. Driven to help, John quit his senior executive position with Microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges.

Founding Room to Read, John wove proven corporate business practices with his inspiring vision to provide educational access to 10 million children in the developing world. His novel approach to non-profit management called for:

  • Scalable, measured, sustainable results
  • Low-overhead, allowing maximum investment in educational infrastructure
  • Challenge grants fostering community ownership and sustainability
  • Strong local staff and partnerships creating culturally relevant programs

Room to Read began working with rural communities in Nepal in 2000 to build schools and establish libraries. The organization's geographic reach expanded rapidly as significant needs and opportunities were identified in Vietnam (2001), Cambodia (2002) and India (2003). The Asian Tsunami in December 2004 provided a catalyst for entry into Sri Lanka followed shortly by Laos. In 2006, we expanded to our second continent by launching Room to Read in South Africa, and we began work in Zambia in 2007. In 2008, we began operations in Bangladesh and will commence program activities in 2009.

Programs

Room to Read has developed a holistic, multi-pronged approach to help children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. The approach includes the following programs:

  • School Room — We partner with villages to build schools.
  • Reading Room — We establish bi-lingual libraries and fill them with donated English books and local language books purchased in-country or self-published, creating a colorful space with posters, games, furniture, and flooring.
  • Local Language Publishing — We source new content from local writers and illustrators and publish high-quality local language children's books to distribute throughout our networks.
  • Computer Room — We establish labs to provide students with vocational skills and employment access.
  • Room to Grow Girls' Scholarship — We fund long-term girls' scholarships for young girls who would otherwise not have access to an education.

To increase the likelihood for success and long-term sustainability, Room to Read enlists community involvement and co-investment through our Challenge Grant model. Villages often raise a significant portion of the overall expenditure in the form of dedicated space, labor, materials and/or small amounts of cash. These challenge grants act as catalysts for community building while also maximizing the local participation and expertise brought to our programs.

We hire local staff, who are personally vested in their nation's educational progress and we empower them to make key programmatic decisions within their country. They are already familiar with the language, conditions, customs and governments and understand the specific needs of the educational system and work to ensure that we craft new solutions to existing problems.

Results to Date

Since our inception in 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of over 1.9 million children by:

  • Constructing 442 schools
  • Establishing over 5,630 libraries
  • Publishing 226 new local language children's titles representing over 2 million books
  • Donating over 2.2 million English language children's books
  • Funding 6,922 long-term girls' scholarships
  • Establishing 155 computer and language labs

Awards, Honors and Press

Over the past few years, Room to Read has received several distinguished awards, including The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Sand Hill Group Foundation's Social Entrepreneurship Award. In addition to these organizational awards, Founder and CEO John Wood has been selected for several honors, including the Draper Richards Foundation Fellowship, the Young Global Leader award from the World Economic Forum, and Time Magazine's Asia's Heroes Award.

Room to Read has been featured in many prestigious newspapers, magazines, websites, and television shows, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, the International Herald Tribune, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Town and Country, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Bloomberg, CNN, and PBS.

Please visit our Awards and Media & Press pages for more details and links to these pieces.

Future Expansion

There are more than 770 million illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds of whom are women and girls. In addition, there are over 100 million children not currently enrolled in primary school and millions of others not currently in secondary school. The need for Room to Read's educational programs spans the globe. To respond to this worldwide demand for our programs, Room to Read is committed to expanding geographically. In addition to maintaining our commitment to expanding our reach within our current Asian and African countries, our expansion plans include:

  • Africa — In 2006, Room to Read launched onto the continent of Africa by opening operations in South Africa; we continued to grow our presence in Africa by launching operations in Zambia in 2007 and programs in 2008. In 2009, we will conduct in-depth research on one to two African countries in either the Southern or Eastern Africa regions with a goal to launch programs in one to two additional countries by 2010.
  • Latin America — Recognizing the need for educational infrastructure throughout the developing world, we have been studying need and opportunity in Latin America. We have identified four countries for deeper examination, including Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. In the coming year we will begin to assess the ability to raise funding for potential operational and programmatic launch in Latin America. If this research proves successful, then we will look at operational launch in one to two countries in Latin America in 2010.
  • Continued Expansion within Asia — In 2008, Room to Read registered as an NGO in Bangladesh and hired a country director. In 2009 we will see this office mature by hiring staff and starting programs. Beyond Bangladesh, we continue to strategize on how to help more Asian countries and to prioritize when to launch Room to Read in additional countries in the region.