Africa Update

Room to Read continues to put down roots in South Africa as we deepen our presence and launch our programs. The efforts are led by our amazing new staff members Liz Tichareva, Regional Director, Africa and Vatiswa Motaung, Country Director, South Africa. In November, we officially received our license and opened our office in Pretoria, paving the way for implementation of our first programs.

Initially our program will focus on establishing libraries and publishing local language children's books. In December, Global Program Officers Ami Ehrlich and Kelly Morphy traveled to South Africa to join Liz and Vatiswa for the site selection of our first libraries. Agreements were signed with 65 school principals to establish libraries in their schools located in the provinces of Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. In addition, 3 children's titles were selected for publication, each in four languages: English, Xhosa, Siswati, and Setswana. The local team further expanded with the hiring of Program Officers to manage both Reading Room and Local Language Publishing programs out of our Pretoria office.

Efforts are already underway to launch Room to Read in Zambia later this year with plans to add a third African country in 2008. We are incredibly excited to add a second continent to our geographic footprint, expanding our reach to millions of children on the African continent. Thanks to all of you who have supported our launch in Africa!

Our 2006 Results Are In!

Our accomplishments to date as of year end 2006 are:

• Construction of 287 schools
• Establishment of over 3,600 libraries
• Publication of 147 new local language children's titles representing over 1.4 million books printed
• Donation of over 1.4 million English language children's books
• Establishment of 82 computer labs
• Establishment of 35 language labs
• Funding of 2,336 long-terms girls' scholarships

Room to Read has impacted over 1.2 million children's lives in 7 countries. We couldn't have achieved these amazing results without you!

Room to Read was selected by The Motley Fool and its readers as one of 5 non-profits to be featured in their 2006 Annual Giving Campaign. The Motley Fool has been around for 13 years and is focused on providing money management skills and investment advice through subscription newsletters, a syndicated newspaper column, books, and their award-winning website. In order to help their members make better charitable investment decisions, nine years ago they launched Foolanthropy, a volunteer-operated site for people seeking to donate to "some of the most worthwhile charities." Each year, readers nominate their favorite charities as beneficiaries of The Motley Fool's annual holiday giving campaign. Since 1997, they have raised $2.5 million. As a result of this year's Foolanthropy drive, over $25,000 was raised in support of Room to Read's programs.

ChangingThePresent is an online shopping site where shoppers can give a philanthropic gift that benefits the non-profit of their choosing. For just a few dollars, shoppers can protect an acre of rainforest, fund an hour of a cancer researcher's time or send a girl to school for a year. When birthdays, weddings and holidays roll around, you might discover that your friends don't really want another fruitcake, picture frame, or pen & pencil set. After all, there comes a point where most of us prefer more meaning in our lives, rather than more stuff. What better way to honor the people we care for than doing something to make the world a better place, in their names. ChangingThePresent wish lists and registries ensure shoppers get just what they want. Room to Read has been chosen as a featured philanthropy on the site and shoppers can choose to fund items such as a bicycle to ensure a child gets to school each day, 100 local language children's book or a computer for a lab in Vietnam.

Make a Web Page, Make a Difference. We're thrilled to announce a new, fun, quick way for you to support Room to Read, courtesy of Squidoo.com. All you would need to do is create an easy-to-build web page about anything you'd like -- your favorite books, hobbies, hometown, whatever. Every page that you create, no matter what the subject matter, will generate royalties and raise awareness for Room to Read every month, forever. So help us spread the word about Room to Read. Build a web page now!

This fall our network of volunteers organized incredibly successful events in cities all over the globe; including Atlanta, Boulder, Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Toronto, New York, Washington DC and Vail. Together these events raised over $500,000 for Room to Read!

This spring Room to Read volunteers will continue to organize events throughout the world! Events are a great way to learn more about Room to Read, meet an interesting group of fellow global citizens, and help children in the developing world gain the lifelong gift of education. For more information, please visit www.roomtoread.org/events.

Room to Read's volunteers are a group of dedicated and committed global citizens whose focus on fundraising allows us to keep our overhead low while we continue to offer educational opportunities to thousands of children in the developing world. If you are interested in hosting a fundraising event or volunteering with an existing chapter, please visit www.roomtoread.org/chapters and fill out a volunteer application form.

Test Scores Rise Following Opening of Room to Read Language Lab!

In August 2005, Room to Read established a language lab in Cho Gao General High School in Southern Vietnam so that students would have a better opportunity to learn foreign languages - both English and French. In less than a year and a half, the lab has already had a profound impact on education at the school - test scores have risen dramatically and one student placed third nationally and was accepted into university to continue his studies.

Cho Gao District, Vietnam

With a population of about 100,000, the Cho Gao District of Tien Giang Province is a poor district, far from the light of modern society. Most people rely on rice farming to make a living, a labor intensive profession subject to the variables of unpredictable weather and market pricing. As a result, the standard of living in Cho Gao is much lower than most of the developed world.

The Cho Gao High School is one of the larger schools in the district, with over 2,300 students and 100 teachers and is considered one of the better schools in the province. Both English and French are taught by the twelve foreign language teachers, who demonstrate both talent and passion. However, before Room to Read's help, the school desperately needed a language lab to improve the foreign language program to help the students learn proper pronunciation and gain confidence in their speaking abilities.

So, in the summer of 2005, Room to Read partnered with the high school to establish a lab that would enable foreign language teachers to better teach their students. The community contributed a spacious room, furniture, lighting, air conditioners and fans, and the television and VCD player, and Room to Read supplied the rest. The result was a beautiful language lab with 40 individual consoles and a teacher's station.

Progress Report

In the fall of 2006, our Vietnam team received a wonderful letter from the Principal of Cho Gao High School, Mr. Vo Ngoc Anh. In the letter, he highlights a successes attributed to their new language lab - passing rates for Baccalaureate English exams at the school rose from 60-70% historically to 90%! Additionally, one 12th grade student, Dinh Nguyen Kieu Oanh, placed third nationally on a national exam for English and was admitted to the Foreign Trade University in Ho Chi Minh without having to take the entrance exam. Mr. Anh goes on to say "Before the lab, our students ... could hardly keep pace with their counterparts in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi. Dinh was the first to make a great breakthrough... In conclusion, we feel sure that the practice of studying English [is] more thorough and more productive with the ownership of a language lab."

This is a great example of the potential that often lies dormant in many rural communities in the developing world. With proper resources, these children can gain the lifelong gift of education and excel both locally and nationally. Room to Read will continue to partner with the Cho Gao High school to improve the lab and receive more fantastic success stories from its students.

As Room to Read continues to grow, we are looking for talented, passionate, humorous, ethical and smart people who want to change the world through the power of education. We currently have 8 new positions for which we continue to recruit. Please share this information with those in your network who might be interested in positions with our San Francisco HQs office (in the beautiful, healthy and sports-friendly Presidio!)

Current openings include:

Chief Program Officer
Chief Expansion Officer
Information & Technology Global Program Officer
Program Associate, Reading Room
Monitoring and Evaluation Associate
PR/Marketing Manager
Finance and Accounting Analyst
Executive Assistant

Descriptions for these positions can be found at www.roomtoread.org/employment

• Room to Read wins the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award for the fourth straight year! The program honors non-profits, or "social entrepreneurs," who combine creativity and ingenuity with business solutions to address the world's most pressing social problems. We are thrilled to be honored once again with this prestigious award.
• Though the official book tour has concluded (over 100 events in 14 weeks - way to go John!), Leaving Microsoft to Change the World continues to sell briskly in major world markets. The Chinese language edition has been released and the Portuguese language version will be published in Brazil this spring.
• Room to Read continues to get great media coverage. On December 22nd, ABC's Channel 7 KGO news aired a report on Room to Read. The full video clip can be viewed on the ABC website. Stay tuned for significant upcoming media hits.
• Dhir Jhingran joins us in the newly created role of Asia Regional Director. Dhir is a prominent leader and facilitator of educational programs at local, state and national levels in India. With over 15 years of professional experience in primary education, Dhir most recently served as Director of Elementary Education for the Ministry of Human Resource Development, responsible for guiding and supervising the implementation of the Education For All program, a national campaign to universalize elementary education in India. He has supervised programs in reading comprehension, computer education, classroom construction and language development, and is the author of two books that focus on the access of education for disadvantaged children. He served as an informal advisor to the Room to Read India team for two years before joining us in his current role as Asia Regional Director, with all country teams in Asia reporting up to him. We are excited to build out a larger regional team based in Delhi with Dhir.