The Need
“Room to Read not only deftly uses existing local resources, it also cleverly pursues new ideas. First, the organization tries new ideas on a small scale to see if they work. If a project shows potential, the organization then scales it up.” – Stanford Social Innovation Review, What Works, Summer 2008
Many Room to Read programs start from simple insights and ideas from our local teams about improvements to our programs that will further help us to educate the world’s children.
Soon after Room to Read was founded, our Nepal team discovered that our libraries were not being used to their fullest potential – simply because few quality children's books were available in the local language. Parents were too poor to afford reading material for their children, so publishers were not motivated to publish children's books in Nepali.
In response, we created an experimental pilot program to publish local language children’s books in 2003. Today, that program has grown into our award-winning Local Language Publishing program, which has printed more than 2.8 million books in 20 local languages across seven countries in Asia and Africa.
Similarly, in 2000, Room to Read recognized that economics, cultural bias and gender discrimination often exclude girls from educational opportunities in the developing world. To begin to address this issue, Room to Read piloted a program to fund the education of 10 girls through a long-term and need-based scholarship program. Our Girls’ Education program quickly proved its worth and soon expanded into Vietnam, Cambodia and India. The program now operates in seven countries and supports more than 7,000 girls to gain an education they otherwise might not receive.
Our Approach
Room to Read continually looks for innovative ways to positively impact millions of children with the gift of education. We are committed to finding sponsors to partner with us on new initiatives that we can test locally and then scale as appropriate into new countries and communities.