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This year, Room to Read is celebrating the next generation of changemakers — the young readers breaking the cycle of illiteracy in their families, the girls charting their chosen life paths, helping to create a more gender equal world — and the remarkable educators, caregivers and community members who support them.

Education, and all that education equals, is made possible because of the people who invest in it — the students and educators, parents and caregivers, partners, supporters and advocates who make learning happen. Even in the face of extraordinary challenges, our global community works together to weave a network of support that helps secure students’ futures and ensure education endures.

Education is transformational. At Room to Read, we have seen it change the lives of more than 23.8 million children who have benefited from our programs over the course of our 20-year history. Education helps children grow, dream and, ultimately, change the world.

We at Room to Read continue to believe that a brighter future is possible and that it all starts with education. Our 2019 Annual Report, Education Endures, not only shares our highlights from 2019, but includes a snapshot of our COVID-19 response work in 2020.

Through education, we can make illiteracy and gender inequality problems of the past. Welcome to the end of impossible. Through the end of 2018, Room to Read has benefited more than 16.8 million children and has created new possibilities for their futures.

A new generation of educated children can turn the tide on crises like hunger, conflict and discrimination, building a better world for everyone. In 2017, you helped 2.2 million girls and boys access life-changing educational opportunities.

Through both direct and technical assistance modes, we are creating real and lasting change for the children we serve. This year's report illustrates how we are finding new ways to engage communities, partner with government ministries, help build a better children’s publishing industry and pioneering critical research on measurement for reading skills and life skills.

We continually strive to improve the effectiveness and transparency of our programs through an objective assessment of the data we collect. Increasingly, we are focused on outcomes — such as children’s reading skills and girls’ progression through secondary school. Moving beyond simply tracking what we do, we are looking instead at the real benefits of our work on children’s lives.

Room to Read has benefited more than 10 million children around the world through our programs in literacy and girls' education. As part of Room to Read's commitment to providing high-quality educational opportunities to children in the most effective ways possible, every five years we reflect on our work and consider how we are doing as an organization.