Room to Read Blog

Doing Good is Clearly Good for Business

They’ve done it again! In just 12 short months, global software company Atlassian has once again exceeded all expectations by raising an incredible $500,000 for Room to Read through their Starter license program, which you can read more about here.

The promotion was launched last fall as an extension of the overwhelmingly successful Stimulus Package that was introduced in April 2009. Through the promotion, small software startups can purchase six of Atlassian’s most popular software products for just $10 each, with all proceeds benefitting Room to Read programs in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

The funding from Atlassian is already making a big difference, with current and future projects to include 34 new libraries, four schools and two local language books. Money is also being set aside to provide 250 scholarships for the holistic education of participants in Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program. All told, more than 32,000 children will have benefitted from educational opportunities thanks to the Start License promotion.

According to Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes, selecting Room to Read as their charity partner was an easy choice after having been inspired for years by our efforts to promote literacy. What was unexpected, he said, was how quickly the promotion “took on a life of its own,” with 31,000 licenses sold to date.

The software company’s support of Room to Read is an extension of the their model wherein 1% of employee time goes to volunteer work, 1% of company equity goes to the Atlassian foundation and 1% of products are donated to non-profits. It’s a model that, according to Room to Read Founder John Wood, “shows how companies can succeed while also doing good for their community.”

Atlassian was also a major player in the Financial Times’ seasonal appeal to readers this year, which raised over $4 million for Room to Read.  The company pledged to match readers’ donations up to $100,000, effectively doubling the impact of those readers’ individual contributions.

Honor Dr. Seuss's Birthday by Reading Our New Cambodia Title: The Little Parrot's New Shoes

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
-- Dr. Seuss

Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, one of the most loved children's book authors of all time, and in his honor (at least in the United States), the National Education Association (NEA) has marked today as Read Across America Day!  But, no matter what country you live in, today is still a great excuse to get excited about reading and focus extra attention on how important it is to impart the habit of reading to children.

In September, we blogged about the making of one of our original Khmer local language children’s book titles from Cambodia called The Parrot with the Missing Shoe (read the blog here). The story was about a colorful parrot who wants to visit his grandmother but can’t because he’s lost his shoes. The book was developed in collaboration with the Cambodian Ministry of Education to supplement their 1st grade curriculum lesson plans on preposition words such as “under” and “in front.”

Well, we’re happy to report that the book was printed at the end of 2009 by Room to Read Cambodia.  Now officially titled The Little Parrot's New Shoes, thousands of copies have been distributed throughout our libraries in Cambodia for children to enjoy.

We know you are curious where the little parrot's new shoes were hiding and therefore, we present to you here The Little Parrot's New Shoes to read out loud to your children in celebration of Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss's birthday.

This book was sponsored by bol.com. Special thanks to them for their support of this title.

The Parrot with the Missing Shoes: the Making of our New Cambodian Children's Book

Room to Read understands that writing and illustrating a new children’s book is no easy task -– which is why our Local Language Publishing (LLP) program works hard to train the creative teams in the countries where we work to learn from each other and share best practices.  Room to Read Cambodia is now in the final stages of printing its newest title, The Parrot with the Missing Shoes, written by a 19-year old woman about a baby parrot who is searching for his missing shoes so he can visit his grandmother.

But this fun, bright-colored main parrot character that children in Cambodia will soon be learning from didn’t start off that way. In fact, the writer initially conceived him as a dark-colored crow but after discussions with our local LLP team, the writer and illustrator agreed that since a crow is traditionally a bad luck symbol in Cambodia, they would change the character to be more culturally sensitive and thus he became a parrot. And why did the author decide to have the parrot find the missing pair of shoes? Well, Room to Read Cambodia, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, was asked to develop children’s books that support the 1st grade textbook which teaches children prepositions such as “under” and “in front” -– words that can be found throughout The Parrot with the Missing Shoes.  The book will be published by the end of the year and will be soon be stocked in Cambodia’s Reading Room libraries for all to enjoy!