Room to Read Blog

Pocket Libraries Teach Literacy and Leadership in Cambodia

Finding time read during school breaks is a universal challenge for students around the globe, but in Cambodia, where children’s books are an unaffordable luxury for most families, it can be nearly impossible.

Recognizing the value of continuous access to books for students’ reading habits, our team in Cambodia embarked on a problem-solving mission late last year. What we needed was a low-cost, high-impact ways of ensuring that even children in the most remote Cambodian communities had the reading material they needed to practing their budding literacy skills during school breaks. 

Constructed of sturdy material sewn to create folds as wide as storybooks, the pocket library seemed like a perfect solution. Large enough to contain a collection of 100 books, it can be hung nearly anywhere. During weekends and school breaks, the entire contraption is rolled up and transported from village to village, allowing children to check out the books one at a time.

“I used to wish for more books to read from at home besides my school textbook,” says Thavry, a fifth grade student from the Kampong Cham province. “Now, the books come to me!”

After piloting the pocket libraries in 2011, our team has now extended the program to several other districts. “Exposure to books at school alone is not enough,” says Chea Sum Vuthy, one of the field facilitators from our School Libraries program. “There must be other accessibility as well.”

In addition to promoting literacy, the pocket library initiative also teaches valuable leadership skills. Students take turns looking after the system and managing the check-out register with enthusiasm. For many, including Thavry, the visits from the pocket library provide the only exposure to reading material outside of school.

Learn more about our School Libraries.

Literacy by the Numbers: Guest Blog from Our Research, Monitoring & Evaluation Team

This is a guest post from Peter Cooper, Room to Read's Senior Officer for Research, Monitoring and Evaluation.

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As an organization, Room to Read has always been committed to the sustainability of our programs. We know that a library is only as good as the number of lives it enriches, so we design each and every one of our programs to ensure the greatest possible sustainability and sense of community ownership.

In an effort to learn more about the sustainability of our school libraries and to put our own theories to the test, we launched a multi-country study in 2011 that examined a statistically representative sample of our post-completion libraries (i.e., projects that have “graduated” from our program and are now run without support from Room to Read). Over a period of months, independent evaluators funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation visited 517 school libraries in three countries—Cambodia, Nepal and South Africa—to see how effectively each project was functioning on its own and where Room to Read might enhance our program to improve the odds of success for all school libraries.

Our team put together the infographic below, featuring highlights from the study, so that our supporters around the globe can catch a glimpse of what we found. Take a look (to view the image full-size, use this link):

Read more about Research, Monitoring and Evaluation on our website.

Aussie Students Sign up to Build a Library in Cambodia, Just in Time for the New Year

This weekend, Cambodia held its annual New Year’s celebration (Chaul Chnam Thmey), and for the students of Pradak Primary School in Siem Reap, the new year will be one filled with hundreds of brand new books.

Starting today, students from primary schools across Australia will come together in a nationwide campaign, the Stubbies Schoolwear World Change Challenge, raising money to build the first-ever library at Pradak Primary.

The campaign kicked off at Ocean Shores Public School, where students raised AU$575 in one day—enough to print 575 local language books to stock the shelves of the soon-to-be-constructed library. To earn the money, students participated in a number of activities, ranging from a mini read-a-thon to a book swap, and one teacher even sponsored a student to keep quiet for the whole day!

Children’s book author Tristan Bancks helped Ocean Shores make a video about the day they spent changing the world (below) to help inspire other schools to get involved. An writer-ambassador for Room to Read, Tristan has even volunteered his own time to the challenge—pledging to hold an exclusive reading and writing workshop with the classroom that raises the most money towards the $20,000 goal.

Good luck to all the schools participating and thanks for being a part of the global movement for education!

Watch the video:

  

Learn more about our work in Cambodia.

In Zambia, a Love of Learning Earns One Young Reader a New Nickname

Mvekero—it means “sound” in Chinyanja, one of Zambia’s many languages.

These days, Mvekero has become a popular word throughout the first grade classrooms of Mungu Basic School, where teachers, as part of their participation in Room to Read’s Reading & Writing Instruction program, are beginning to rethink the way they present foundational literacy concepts to their students—breaking down words into letters and sounds first. The new technique has already shown impressive results for several students, including Cascius, whose reading skills are among the best in his class.

Cascius and his family live in one of the nearby feeder villages for Mungu Basic, where 78 percent of families live in poverty. His parents, Humphrey and Astridah, are visibly proud of their son’s progress in school, and proudly mention to our team that he was one of six children chosen to represent his school at the zone literacy competition.

Beyond the official recognition though, Astridah and Humphrey say their son’s progress is most visible at home—where he often makes reference to the concepts he has learned in school.

“He’s conscious of how I pronounce my words and shows off his learning,” says Astridah, with a smile. “Almost every day, he corrects me either with the initial sound or the final sound of a word I say, and explains why.”

Based on the progress they have seen in their son’s reading ability, Cascius's parents say they are extremely pleased with the program now underway at Mungu Basic. Their other son, now in the third grade, has consistently struggled with reading and writing, but he too has seen improvement through regular practice with his younger brother. 

Cascius’s love of reading and writing has even earned him a nickname around the house, says his mother.  “We all fondly call him Mvekero now!”

Learn more about our work in Zambia.

How One Woman's Book Club in India Has Transformed an Entire Community

The residents of the Shaoliya village in Rajasthan used to spend their evenings playing cards, but recently a new activity had become popular in the community—reading.

In 2008, Room to Read established a library at the local government primary school, but found that engaging parents in their children’s literacy habits was an uphill task. “We had a hard time explaining the benefits of a library to the parents and teachers who were resistant to this change,” says the library facilitator.

Then one day, Sita Kimari—a long-time resident of Shaoliya who was educated only up to fifth grade—decided to check out the school’s new facilities. “I was attracted by the large illustrations, even though I couldn’t read the books,” she says. “As a child, my father always forbade me from reading and wanted me to help him in the fields instead, but there was something welcoming about the library.”

Sita began to make regular visits to the school library whenever she had spare time. “I would sit in the room and try to read the lines written below the illustrations,” she recalls. “The librarian helped me to overcome my fright of reading, and now I can read some books aloud with confidence.”

After she had experienced the value of the library, Sita offered to help our team engage the rest of the community. Some villagers, she said, saw school as a place for children only, which kept them from using the library. In an effort to remove that stigma, Sita began to check out a few books at a time from the school library and issue them to friends and neighbors. She also started a reading club and discussion forum with other women in the village.

Soon the large courtyard in front of Sita’s house had turned into a nightly reading corner—filled to the brim with adults and children devouring books in their local language. Sita keeps a meticulous register of all checkouts and even attended a training put on by our local team on how to tell stories effectively, for those in her community who cannot read at all.

These efforts, combined with the students’ enthusiasm for reading have had an immense effect on the community’s priorities. “Each evening, I look forward to coming to Sita’s house to read these books,” says Dhanraj Choudhary, a neighbor. “The simplicity of language and ideas in these books makes them attractive.”

Dhanraj has quickly become a regular of Sita’s book club. “I have stopped playing cards in my spare time,” he says. “Instead I read books.”

Learn more about our School Library program and about our work in India.