Government Collaboration to Improve Libraries and Teacher Training

We are Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) accredited in South Africa, and we are one of a small handful of implementing partners with the Department of Basic Education’s 1,000 Libraries campaign. They encourage organizations, such as Room to Read, to do similar work in historically underserved regions throughout South Africa including teacher training, instruction techniques, assessments and reading materials.

Validation of Our Work

We are proud to have supported systems-level change in South Africa through our Results in Education for All Children (REACH) technical assistance project. In partnership with the World Bank from 2017 to 2019, we increased the supply of high-quality indigenous language storybooks across the regions of Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Through this project, we published 120 original storybooks in six languages (English, isiZulu, Tshivenda, Siswati, Xitsonga and Sepedi), distributed more than 46,000 copies to government schools and distributed more than 16,000 copies to the public. Additionally, we trained local publishers on best practices and published our guidelines for creating quality storybooks, so indigenous language storybooks will continue to be created in the future. We will continue to support thousands of children throughout the historically under-resourced educational landscape of South Africa.