What We Do

Building educational infrastructure and providing educational opportunities in the developing world is not a simple task. Every country offers a unique set of challenges and advantages, every region has its strengths and weaknesses, every community has its own needs. For this reason, Room to Read employs local teams led by a local director in each country. Our local teams understand the needs of each country and each community. They speak the language, know the customs, and understand what it takes to implement each program successfully. They ensure that our programs are of the highest quality and meet their singular needs.

We have four core programs that provide educational resources to communities throughout the developing world:

  • Reading Room Program - We establish libraries and stock them with local-language children’s books, original Room to Read titles, donated English-language books, games and furniture to create a child-friendly learning environment.
  • Local Language Publishing Program - We source new content from local writers and illustrators and publish high-quality children's books in the local language to distribute throughout our networks.
  • School Room  Program - We partner with local communities to build schools so children can learn in a safe, child-friendly environment.
  • Girls' Education Program - We provide long-term, holistic support enabling girls to pursue and complete their secondary education.

Through our Challenge Grant model, communities co-invest with Room to Read, facilitating the long-term sustainability of our projects after our local teams have moved on to assist other villages.

We also regularly test new program models so we can appropriate scale them into new countries and communities, and we track our results to ensure that our programs run effectively and efficiently, and have the best possible impact on children throughout the developing world.

Room to Dream

With your help, 11,000 communities can visit their first library

Invest in Room to Dream

Schools 1,556
Libraries 13,152
Books Published 707
Books Distributed 11.5 million
Girls' Education Participants
 16,879
Children Benefited 6.7 million

results updated quarterly