Reading Room

“Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, is essential to the development and health, and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship.” – Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General

The Need

In 2003, UNESCO launched an initiative called the International Literacy Decade in response to the fact that 774 million people in the world could not read and write.

While some countries have made significant progress in increasing literacy among children and adults, it still remains a major challenge throughout the world. UNESCO identified having access to a “literate environment ” as one of the critical factors in supporting literacy development. If children do not have regular access to engaging books and other reading materials to practice their literacy skills, they are less likely to become lifelong readers and learners.

Our Approach

Room to Read seeks to address this issue by establishing children’s libraries in communities where poverty, ethnicity, or other social and cultural barriers put children at a significant educational disadvantage.

Our flagship program, Reading Room, has established more than 10,000 libraries since Room to Read was founded in 2000. By engaging children with books in a fun and meaningful way, the Reading Room program helps children develop a lifelong habit of reading.

Our objectives are simple – we want to:

Increase access and use of library resources for school and/or community members.
Increase literacy awareness in schools and/or communities and integrate library resources into children’s learning environments.
Support sustainable Reading Rooms by improving school administration, librarian, and/or teacher capacity to ensure the libraries are well run.

Room to Read libraries come in all shapes and sizes, but all share a common element – our local team works directly with the community to determine how best to create a child-friendly, print-rich environment and provide girls and boys with access to children's books. Room to Read then co-invests with them to provide books and other learning materials, trains teachers and librarians, and works with schools and community centers to ensure there is time and space for regular access to books.

Our Results

As of March 2010, Room to Read has established more than 9,000 libraries in our partner countries. With your help, we can reach our goal of establishing 11,000 libraries, to positively impact more than five million children by the end of 2010.