Thanks to your support, we raised $4.3MM (£2.7MM) through the Financial Times Seasonal Appeal!
Through the outpouring of support from FT readers that were then matched by a generous matching pool made up of corporations and foundations, we exceeded our fundraising goal for the 2009-2010 seasonal appeal.
John Wood, Room to Read’s Founder and Executive Chairman, said, “Thanks to the FT seasonal appeal, we will now be able to say ‘yes’ to funding educational projects that will reach tens of thousands of additional children across some of the most resource-deprived parts of Asia and Africa. To all who have contributed: a sincere and heartfelt thank you.”
With the $4.3MM raised through this appeal, we estimate that over 173,000 children will have access to quality educational programs. This is the equivalent of:
- 1,083 libraries established with multi-lingual books and librarian training; or,
-
289 new colorful children’s titles published and put into circulation; or
- 131 new primary schools built in communities in need of new infrastructure.
Thank you again for believing in our mission and vision and for providing much-needed educational support to children throughout Asia and Africa!
The FT Seasonal Appeal is supported by the following generous partners:
To read the press release about the FT partnership and seasonal appeal, click here.
You can learn more about Room to Read below through the following stories or click here for our About Us section.
Stories from the Financial Times
FT appeal for literacy charity raises $4.3m
January 29, 2010
The Financial Times’ seasonal appeal on behalf of the charity Room to Read, which supports child literacy in the developing world, has raised US$4,330,758. John Wood, the charity’s founder and executive chairman, said: “Thanks to the FT seasonal appeal, we will now be able to say ‘yes’ to funding educational projects that will reach tens of thousands of additional children across some of the most resource-deprived parts of Asia and Africa. To all who have contributed: a sincere and heartfelt thank you.”
Read the full article
US pledge boosts FT's literacy appeal
December 29, 2009
A California-based foundation has given a fresh boost to the FT’s seasonal appeal on behalf of the Room to Read charity by adding £250,000 to the pool of funds available to match readers’ donations.......
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Schools are a luxury not a right in Nepal
December 24, 2009
The children walking along the dusty road, each with a thick stack of textbooks under their arm, are probably an hour away from school. For miles around, there is no sign of anything much: a scattering of stilted houses in the yellowing paddy fields, some buffalo trudging through a road-side ditch, a bridge over the trickle of a river......
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What inspired the founder of Room to Read
December 23, 2009
John Wood’s epiphany, almost to his own embarrassment, took place in a Nepalese monastery. As he describes it in his book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, the then high-flying computer executive plucked up the courage to leave corporate life and start an educational charity over a brass bowl of piping hot yak-butter tea surrounded by 30 chanting monks.....
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Room to Read builds libraries in Sri Lanka
December 18, 2009
It looks like a normal prize-giving ceremony at a normal school. Children are arranged by age on rows of seats in the barn-like hall. They wait patiently, a burble of chatter rising on the boiling air towards the tin roof....
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Drawing out talent to create children’s books
December 15, 2009
By day, R.C. Pradeep Kumar runs the gauntlet of Sri Lanka’s political and ethnic divide as a cartoonist working for a Tamil daily newspaper.By night and at weekends, he turns to the less politically sensitive pursuit of drawing illustrations for children’s books...
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Room to Read's results in Sri Lanka
December 11, 2009
The first thing I noticed about 11-year-old Kasun Amarasinghe was the state of his shirt. Theoretically white, it was tinged with a bluish sheen, possibly the result of being washed together with his navy blue shorts.....
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Video Report: Room to Read Laos
December 9, 2009
FT Asia Editor David Pilling reports on Room to Read's work in Laos, where education is a luxury and school is serious business...
View the video
Helping children get the habit
December 8, 2009
Of all the books in the Naleng school library, the one that appears to be attracting least interest is a 1984 tract – translated into Lao – about the Russian revolution. With page after page of dense text, broken only by an occasional drawing of a saintly looking Vladimir Lenin, the book appears to be completely untouched.....
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Room to Read helps educate Laotian women
December 5, 2009
It is 7.30am and Somphet Phongphachanh is already in tears. The trigger for her emotion is a reminder of the previous day’s encounter with a girl forced to live far away from home so she can attend school.....
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Villagers dig deep to fill education gap
December 1, 2009
The women of the construction committee, grandmothers all, are gathered by the entrance of the newly built pre-school, an arch of freshly cut coconut branch marking the threshold to the immaculate school grounds.....
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Servant to schoolgirl
November 28, 2009
It was during the 1999 Maghi festival, whose revelries grip western Nepal in mid-January each year, that Asha Tharu’s parents sold her....
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Video Report: Why donate to Room to Read?
November 23, 2009
Financial Times’ Deputy editor Martin Dickson speaks with Room to Read Founder and Executive Chairman, John Wood, about his trip to a school in Nepal that inspired him to leave his job as a Microsoft executive and found a nonprofit dedicated to providing books and libraries for children’s education in the developing world...
View the video
All sitting comfortably?
November 23, 2009
From a distance it sounds like the chanting of monks. Only as one approaches the building, set in the lush fields of a school playground, does it become apparent who is making the sound: dozens of girls quietly reading books...
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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
— Nelson Mandela