Room to Read Blog

Library in Cambodia Helps One Reluctant Reader Rise to the Top of Her Class

Narin is a bright young second grader from Chombok He Primary School in Siem Reap. Her wide smile and enthusiasm make it hard to believe that this little girl has already experienced incredible hardship.

After his wife passed away a few years ago, Narin’s father, an army man, was forced to relocate to the Thai border. He left his daughter behind to live with her grandmother, who earns a meager living selling rice noodles at the local market.

Narin’s day starts at the break of dawn helping her grandmother with household chores and assisting with preparation of the noodles. Unable to afford a bicycle, she then walks a mile and a half to school, rushing so as to have time in the library before class.

“The library period is too short and not enough for me, so I make extra time to go there whenever I can,” she says with a smile.

Narin has not always been such an enthusiastic reader, but ever since Room to Read established a library at her school in 2010, she is a regular visitor. She loves playing with the puzzles and games there, and knows where to find all her favorite books by heart.

“I read about eight books each day, and borrow two or so to take home with me at a time,” she says. “I read those stories aloud to my grandmother who is very proud of my skills and also to my uncle who is in seventh grade.”

“Ever since she started going to the library, Narin’s reading skills have improved considerably,” says Narin’s teacher. “She can now read at a third grade reading level, and is a role model for other students in the school.”

Narin plans to put her academic prowess to good use, and has set some very ambitious career goals for herself. “I want to be a doctor, so that I can help people,“ she says. “ I am working hard to get there and I am confident that I will be able to fulfill my dreams.”

Learn more about our work establishing libraries.

Guest Blog from John Wood: Kicking off the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative

The excitement is palpable as the world descends upon New York for today’s opening of the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). I’ve been lucky enough to attend CGI on behalf of Room to Read for the past five years, and now sit on CGI’s Advisory Board. Every year I’m in awe of how the forum has turned into a catalyst for game-changing partnership and collaboration in the field of international development. Each year, I leave with new connections and new ideas that we have been able to implement to make a difference for millions of children across the developing world.

This year’s CGI will be no different. Room to Read will unveil an innovative report, the inspiration for which was born at a meeting convened by CGI last spring. At the meeting, Cory Heyman, our chief program officer, met with representatives from FHI 360 and Amenons Nos Filles á l’Ecole (ANFE), two other nonprofits working in the field of girls’ education. Despite the multitude of organizations around the world dedicated to girls’ education, they noted, there has been very little research dedicated to identifying the factors that contribute to girls’ success in reaching higher education.

Together they questioned: If we know that gender bias, safety concerns, early marriage, pregnancy and financial disadvantage are major roadblocks to tertiary education, then what are the success factors that can help girls in the developing world overcome them? In other words—let’s not focus on the barriers, let’s learn about the real-world solutions that actually work.

As the idea for a study identifying such factors began to take shape, The MasterCard Foundation, with whom we first connected at CGI 2010, stepped in to provide guidance and financial support—kicking off six months of rigorous research.

The fact is, even under the most challenging conditions, there are young women across the developing world charting new territory and taking the bold step of seeking higher education. We wanted to hear from them—in their own words—about the factors that were positively contributing to their success.

Our team conducted in-person interviews with 160 of these trailblazing young women in Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India and Mauritania, and found that despite political, cultural, and economic differences between their communities, the girls identified very similar success factors as being instrumental in their ability to reach university.

The young women we met shared personal stories that illuminated their common attributes of determination and courage. Many cited the encouragement of their families, teachers and communities as being paramount to their success, coupled with the material and emotional support they'd received from nonprofit organizations.

For Room to Read, these findings will help shape our Girls’ Education program curriculum, which we’ve built out over the years to go beyond financial support and to include extensive life skills training and mentoring as well as family and community engagement.

By releasing the final report at this year’s CGI Annual Meeting, we hope that these girls’ voices can reach across borders and help shape best practices in the field of girls’ education for years to come.

Read the complete report, Through Their Eyes, In Their Voices: Young women in five countries share their experiences navigating tertiary education, on our website.

Tune in tomorrow at 3:20pm EST to watch John Wood answer your questions live from CGI in an interview with Randi Zuckerberg broadcast on Facebook.

Show and Tell: Story Time at Chreav Primary School

This post is part of the ongoing series, Show and Tell, where we bring you photos and stories collected by Room to Read team members on the road. 

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Today’s show and tell comes from Danielle Reichner, a senior global program operations officer based out of our San Francisco global headquarters.  

Danielle is currently traveling to several of our program sites in Asia, supporting our teams in-country as they plan their next year of operation. During her time in Cambodia, Danielle visited Chreav Primary School, where she witnessed a reading competition. Each child in the competition had memorized their favorite book, and presented it aloud to their audience, Danielle included. 

Here are some of her photos from that special day:

Cambodia Adopts Nationwide Library Standards, with Help From Some Friends

Last year, the Cambodian Ministry of Education released a report indicating that over 55 percent of the country’s 6,555 primary schools had libraries. Normally, this would be great news, but as it turned out, things weren’t exactly as they seemed. With no official standards to use as a guide, many of the schools reported having a library even if they had just a few books or none at all.

“Some called it a library with only a few books, others with only one chair and a single shelf for schools with many classrooms,” says Kall Kann, Room to Read’s Country Director in Cambodia. “In grades one through three," he continues, “they rely on two textbooks to study, and they have no additional reading material.”

Seeing a need to change this in their country, Room to Read Cambodia teamed up with local partner NGOs SIPAR and SVA, initiating a year-long effort to enact nationwide standards for school libraries including a set ratio of books to children, a description of the library environment, and minimum qualifications and pay for the librarians who run them.

“Without a minimum standard, schools couldn’t request money from the central government to allow them to buy books,” explains Kall, “they do not know how many books should be in the library, they don’t have librarians, and they don’t have an understanding of what qualifications are required for a librarian.”

Hammering out the details of the new library standards and getting the necessary approvals took just under a year, and included discussions with both national and provincial education representatives. It all paid off!  On May 3, 2011, the Ministry of Education finally adopted the new standards as the official benchmark for all primary schools nationwide.

“I see that when children read a lot, you increase their knowledge, increase their understanding and their attitude becomes more mature—they are much more understanding of the situation around them and trends across the globe,” said the Minister of Education, who hopes that the new standards will help his department to better mobilize its resources.

Kall also has high hopes for the new policy, and its potential effect on the Cambodian education system as a whole. “We need to make sure our children learn to explore, learn to do research, learn to summarize,” he says, things which “can be achieved by reading a lot.”

Read more about our work in Cambodia.

It's Her Choice: Proud Fathers and Grandfathers Support Their Girl's Education

Room to Read is in the midst of conducting a post-secondary transition study of our Girls’ Education Program. Researcher and guest blogger, Kirsten Anderson, traveled to India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia to interview girls who are currently enrolled in our Girls' Education program as well as those program alumnae and parents. Findings from this study will be released later this year. In celebration of Father’s Day, Kirsten shares her conversation with a grandfather and father in Cambodia. This is the third in the series of blog posts from her travels. (Read her previous posts here and here.)

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There is a Khmer proverb ស្រីបង្វិលចង្រ្កានមិនជុំ (srey bang vil chang kran min chum) that literally translates to: “Women are unable to walk around the stove.” The meaning being that woman can never be far from the kitchen. Yet the participants in our Girls' Education program have strayed from the kitchen into the classroom—the most fortunate of which have the support of their family, including fathers and grandfathers. Meet, for example, Mr. Huon, the proud grandfather of a girl scholar in rural Cambodia. Sitting on retired school benches in the shade of a teacher’s home, he stayed behind after our official research meeting ended to discuss girls’ education.

Mr. Huon explained that he has been blessed with many grandchildren and today, in fact, was the wedding day of one of his granddaughter’s. However, instead of celebrating with his family, Mr. Huon had other priorities. He had decided to miss some of the festivities to discuss the future education of another one of his granddaughters who was being supported by Room to Read and about to graduate from high school.

Mr. Houn explained, “Poverty is the biggest challenge facing young women and education today.” In rural Cambodia, if a family is struggling financially, girls often drop out to help in the fields or to work at a garment factory. He admitted that he needed some convincing at first, but after talking with Room to Read’s Social Mobilizer and with the help of Room to Read’s Girls' Education program, he realized work and marriage could wait, but knowledge could not. One of Mr. Huon’s granddaughters is working in a garment factory. He is convinced his other granddaughter who is gaining an education will have different opportunities and more choices. His hope is that she will go to university and he is educating himself about her options.

The proud father of Champey (highlighted in our 2009 Girls' Education Yearbook) thinks similarly. I met him, along with other parents of girls supported by our program, in a rural village near the Thai-Cambodia border. Champey’s father described the employment opportunities for uneducated young women in his community—illegal migrant agriculture labor or factory work across the border in Thailand. Because of the limited employment opportunities for uneducated young women these parents spoke about the honor their daughter has brought to their family. Neighbors often comment and admire their families because they have a daughter that is studying. They feel lucky because their daughters have access to knowledge, reading and writing.

“I’m so proud of my daughter. She has the chance to continue her studies. She wants to be a teacher or a doctor. I will support her decision either way, it is her choice,” her father said.

These two men demonstrate the encouragement male figures can provide to enable girls to walk around the stove, out of the kitchen, into the classroom, onto university, and beyond. The girls on our Girls' Education program agree: “Disregard this proverb because it no longer applies to us, we are capable of doing anything we want.” These young women now have choices and dreams of giving back to their communities, their country and their family. This grandfather and father are proud and in awe of their accomplishments—happy to offer support and encouragement every step of the way.

Learn more about our programs in Cambodia and our Girls' Education program.

Photo caption: above, Champey (2nd from the left) and her friends celebrating their soon-to-be accomplishment: graduating from high school!

Room to Read Celebrates International Children's Book Day

On April 2, the world celebrates International Children’s Book Day, a forty-four year tradition established by the International Board on Books for Young People on the birthday of esteemed children’s book author, Hans Christian Andersen. International Children’s Book Day is designed to inspire a love of reading among children and adults. At Room to Read, we celebrate reading every day, as we work to provide the materials, environment and skills for children in some of the more marginalized regions of the world so that they can discover the joy of books.

The theme of International Children’s Book Day for 2011 is “The Book Remembers,” which means that books are reflections of the time in which they are written. Thus, they are invaluable sources of history, as well as being entertaining and inspiring. Room to Read’s Local Language Publishing program holds culture and tradition as critical elements of the books we publish. We want to be sure the children reading these books can identify with the setting, the characters, the habits and speech –- for in seeing themselves and their surroundings, they are better able to understand and learn.

Last week, the two global office members of our Local Language Publishing team, Wilfredo (Wili) Pasqual and Sarah Stewart, had just returned from a 60-day, seven-country trip through south and southeast Asia. Though they were still fighting off jetlag and wading through unread email, they couldn’t wait to share some of unforgettable moments and colorful stories they brought back from their recent journey. The fast-paced tour was planned in an effort to survey the Local Language Publishing program -– its strengths and opportunities for growth. Along the way, Wili and Sarah met with individuals from all the various groups involved with putting local language children’s books into the hands of young and budding readers. Their notebooks and Flip cameras were filled with conversations with authors, illustrators, librarians, teachers, ministers of education, publishers, and, of course, some of the children enjoying the colorful and inspiring books filling the shelves of their libraries and schools and filling their imaginations.

One of these children was Kimlay, from a village near Siem Reap in Cambodia. Two years ago, Kimlay struggled to keep up with her school work. Because her reading skills were poor, she was very embarrassed whenever asked to read aloud in class. The librarian at her school saw a dramatic shift in Kimlay’s performance once a Room to Read library was established. With the encouragement of her grandmother and aunt, both of whom had attended school themselves, Kimlay became a voracious reader, checking out up to 10 books each day and staying up late to finish every book so that she could check out 10 more the following day. Kimlay is now ranked third in her class and continues to bring home a stack of books each night, many of which she reads to her young cousin.

What Wili and Sarah found as they traveled via plane, bus, tuk-tuk and footpath, is that, the value of children’s books is universal. The words and the pictures touch the soul and imagination of young minds eager to discover and understand their world.

On International Children’s Book Day, we honor the authors and illustrators who create these portals to places undiscovered. We honor the librarians and teachers who make these tools available to young readers. And we honor the children who happily and enthusiastically pore over the colorful pages as they journey to magical places.

Read more about our Local Language Publishing program.

 

Making the Transition: Graduates Surveyed about Life After Room to Read

Room to Read is committed to tracking results and improving programming. Our monitoring and evaluations team conducts studies on an on-going basis, and this year, we are conducting a post-secondary school transition study of our Girls’ Education program participants. In November 2010, Kirsten Anderson joined Room to Read as the Girls’ Education Program Fellow to conduct this study. She began research in India and shares her thoughts and experiences of conducting fieldwork with our inspiring girls. Stay tuned for updates from Kirsten’s research in India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia over the next several months.

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Weaving in and out of Delhi’s traffic on dusty streets, the research assistants and I finally arrived at our destination—a poor urban community located on the back side of an old fort wall. We had scheduled a focus group with four young women, each the first person in their family to graduate from 12th grade. This was our first day of research and our task was to make sure our freshly translated interview questions made sense for the young women we were interviewing.

The day was bitterly cold, and fifteen minutes into our first focus group, the power went out. For the young women we were interviewing, power cuts are a common occurrence. They didn’t even flinch and continued to talk about their financial struggles and having to balance work with university courses. For the research team, the darkness was a frustrating disruption. Not only is it hard to take notes and refer to the list of interview questions, reading facial expressions and body language in the dark is next to impossible. But the darkness was also a blessing, as it allowed us to really focus on the women’s voices—to listen to the details of their stories and feel what they were saying.

As of December 2010, 234 of Room to Read's Girls’ Education program scholars from India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia have graduated from secondary school. This number will quickly multiply as the Girls’ Education program provides scholarships and material support to more than 10,000 girls across eight countries. What are the young women doing now? What do they plan to do in the next ten years? How has Room to Read influenced their lives and their goals?

For the next four months, the research team and I will conduct interviews and focus groups with the program’s recent and upcoming graduates. The purpose of this study is to learn more about how these young women navigate this time of transition and opportunity. How do they make decisions about higher education, employment, as well as marriage and possibly parenthood? What are their challenges? What are their success stories? The stories they share of their struggles, accomplishments and ambitions will teach us and inform our current and future programming, and give us insight as to how we can better prepare future graduates.

Collecting these stories, however, requires constantly balancing the rigors of research and the realities of the field. It means listening intently, asking the right questions and learning about the whole person and her story.

We recently met with a young woman who had just graduated from 12th grade. Her shaky hands and quick, quivering voice were not the results of the Delhi winter, but of an obvious sense of shyness and nervousness. Midway through, she stopped to tell us that she did not usually develop bonds with adults so easily, but she felt comfortable with us and wanted to share her story. She talked about her future ambition: to study English, to get a job and to support her family. She described her family and how her parents have supported her education—sometimes giving up meals to pay additional fees for her and her sister. Wanting to maintain an objective distance, the research assistant and I quickly busied ourselves with our notes so as not to show our eyes tearing.

As we presented her with a small thank you gift—a notebook and pen—she thanked us for giving her the opportunity to share her story. Yet, I am the thankful one. I am humbled and honored to spend time with these young women—so full of courage, strength and determination.

Every day, we emerge from our interviews to a different Delhi—warmer as the days grow longer. We have adjusted our vision, as these young women do every day when they think about and plan for their future. We anticipate our next interviews with a renewed sense of hope and focus.

Read more about how Room to Read tracks results in its programs.  

Room to Read Volunteers: Rolling Up Their Sleeves to Support Literacy

Volunteers are the lifeblood of most non-profit organizations, and Room to Read is proud to claim a worldwide network of individuals who have committed their time and efforts to help us continue our work in education. They are officially named our Chapters, but we regularly call them our heroes, ambassadors and superstars.

December 5 is International Volunteer Day, as established by the United Nations in 1985, and though we appreciate our chapter volunteers every minute, we take this special opportunity to take our hats off and express our warm thanks for countless hours of work that have produced outstanding results in fundraising and awareness-raising for Room to Read.

Who are these individuals who willingly give up their evenings and weekends to coordinate and attend fundraising events and meetings, stuff envelopes, make phone calls and spread the word about the work we’re doing?  At our annual chapter leadership training, the hankies come out as we hear the moving stories of why each individual decided to commit their time and energy to Room to Read. For some, it’s having experienced economic challenges as a child, for others, it’s having traveled to areas where we work and wanting to make a difference.

Jennifer Mathy, the driving force behind the new chapter in Ridgefield, Connecticut (scheduled to officially launch in 2011), was drawn to Room to Read looking for a way to turn tragedy into world change. She recently returned to Connecticut after spending two years in Singapore with her family. While in Singapore, she got involved with a charity that builds schools in Cambodia and provides student scholarships in the Philippines.

She explains, “The first school I helped to rebuild had collapsed 11 years before, during the Khmer Rouge regime, a time when an entire generation of educated adults were massacred, leaving an entire generation of kids without access to an education. More than 1,000 children in the area had never been to school, had never learned to read or write, had never seen a book. Visiting that school, meeting those villagers, changed my life.”

This wasn’t the first event that had a profound effect on Jennifer’s life. On September 11, 2001, she was heading to work in Tower Two in New York. "I had just walked through the door to my office building when the first plane hit that morning," she recalls. "My experiences that day, the horrible things I witnessed and the amazing people I met, will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Last summer, Jennifer read about a local initiative to build a memorial to commemorate the victims of 9/11. “When I read the article about the Ridgefield memorial, I asked myself, ‘Why does a memorial have to be a physical structure?’ A memorial like that is important to a community, to remind us of the people we lost and of those who stepped up and said, ‘Yes, I’ll help another human being.’ But why can’t a memorial be a living, breathing thing? Why can’t I be a memorial to those 7,600 people? That’s when I contacted Room to Read.”

Room to Read’s goal is to help 10 million children by the year 2015. Jennifer has personally committed to helping 7,600 of those people, one for every person who lost their lives or their spouses or parents in the Twin Towers. She has already recruited 15 people to join the new chapter and she is planning to hold an informational meeting about Room to Read for the entire Ridgefield community, not only to recruit chapter members, but also to raise awareness of the organization.  She notes, “We have a lot of talent in Ridgefield, and I want to be sure we get the word out about the amazing work Room to Read is doing.”

There are more than 5,000 Room to Read volunteers around the world like Jennifer Mathy.  Almost from day one, Room to Read established a unique chapter model to utilize volunteers in major cities around the world and these volunteers make long-term commitments to help promote the organization within their own personal networks and communities. This year, our fundraising chapters in over 50 cities worldwide have raised more than US$10 million, which is one-third of our annual budget.

Room to Read’s continued success in fundraising translates directly into more books, more schools, better teaching and expanded access to quality education. We salute our family of volunteers around the globe who have helped us reach over five million children.

For more information about how to get involved with a chapter near you or for other volunteer opportunities, please visit our website.

 

Drawing a Line in the Sand on Literacy

Literacy is defined as "reading skill and reading habit," and it has the power to unlock doors to opportunity. As Room to Read focuses on enhancing literacy skills in the nine countries where we work, we're introducing literacy pilot programs that include additional teacher training, curriculum development and supplemental classroom materials. Joel Bacha, Room to Read's Southeast Asia Program Manager for Literacy, describes a visit to a school in Cambodia where our literacy pilots have been initiated.

Walking with the principal toward the grade 1 classroom at Tatouk Primary School in Siem Reap province, we notice several students watch our approach through an open window. The principal explains that the grade 1 reading program is different this year: the students are more active – from his office, he can hear them sing songs and play games, and overall they seem to be enjoying school more. In today’s class, there are about 40 students. The teacher asks for volunteers and half the class raises their hands. The teacher calls on one girl who comes to the front of the class and chooses a letter. She holds it up to the class, and everyone calls out the name of the letter, “Shri-la.”

After we observed the class for 10 minutes, the teacher had the students go outside and line up in two lines. She asked them to draw the letter shape they had just learned in the air. Then the students bent down to write the letter in the sand.  When they were finished, each student checked their neighbor’s work to see if they had drawn the letter correctly. For those who needed more help, the teacher provided extra guidance, and in some cases, the teacher directed students to help each other. To reinforce the lesson, students wiped the area in front of them clear and practiced writing the letter again in pairs.  Afterwards, they washed their hands, returned to the classroom and pulled out their notebooks. The teacher wrote the letter on the board several times and the students followed by writing the letter in their note books at their own pace.

The literacy program is seen as important in Siem Reap where a large percentage of students are not reading at grade level by the time they reach grade 3. The program aims to promote a balanced approach for teaching reading where students are exposed to phonics instruction and structured reading time. Part of the challenge has been the limited training for teachers and the complex Khmer script which students are expected to learn in a short amount of time.

Earlier this fall, 36 grade 1 teachers from 20 schools in the local school district participated in a Room to Read literacy teacher training. However, while many grade 1 teachers are used to teaching phonics, teaching reading is still new. The teachers were introduced to interactive teaching and learning methods for phonics, reading and writing in the Khmer language. One of the teachers commented, “The extra activities in the [My Reading] book are really helpful. The students are learning better [than last year] because they are interested in the activities. I thought that trying the “new” way would be difficult. It takes more time to try at first, but once I get used to the activities, it seems better for students.”

For more information about our pilot programs and our work in Cambodia, visit our website.

 

Guest blog from Financial Times CEO John Ridding: Snapshot from Cambodia

John Ridding, Financial Times CEO and Room to Read Board Member, recently visited our projects in Cambodia and Sri Lanka. In the following guest blog, John shares the memorable evening he had in Siem Reap at the 10 Year Anniversary celebration planned by Room to Read Cambodia.

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The Room to Read tenth anniversary ceremony in Siem Reap was a grand affair -- traditional Khmer dancing, a line of provincial officials listening stiff-backed to the national anthem and a succession of speeches, culminating with the local governor. But all were upstaged by the star of the show -- a diminutive schoolgirl who stepped up with a confidence beyond her years to tell her story.

Hawai, the eldest of eight siblings, had been deprived of schooling because of poverty and an alcoholic father. It seemed an unhappily common story in Cambodia. Earlier that day, we had seen a schoolyard play in which a drunken dad was the villain and the reason why his children were not being educated. It struck a chord with the village children, who watched intently, and it hit a nerve with some of the dads looking nervously towards the grassy stage.

In Hawai’s case, the story had a happy ending. Granted a spot in Room to Read's Girl’s Education program, she became a top student. So impressed was her father, that he quit drinking and became a Buddhist priest. Her other siblings are attending school, or waiting to attend. Hawai is aiming for university and wants to work for Room to Read. With the confidence and energy she displayed, there’s every chance she’ll succeed in her ambitions.

It was a moving story and a reminder for all of us that, beyond the metrics and statistics that Room to Read rightly uses to measure and challenge itself -- and which are a significant factor in the support of donors and the Financial Times -- the real meaning of the movement is the children who benefit.

I was fortunate this trip to be able to see projects in both Sri Lanka and Cambodia. And the two abiding impressions that stand out from the myriad of memories we brought back were the infectious enthusiasm of the children, matched only by the enthusiasm and dedication of the Room to Read teams.

Whether it was the dramatization of Sumudi’s Dance, one of the many titles from the burgeoning Sri Lankan local language publishing operation -- performed with style, grace, and spectacular self-made animal costumes by a troupe of schoolgirls -- or the progress reports delivered enthusiastically from the local staff, or the outstanding exhibition arranged by the Cambodia team, the quality and creativity of the work on the ground in each country shone through.

It was a once in a lifetime experience. And it was unforgettable to see how so many lives will be transformed and improved because of Room to Read.

The Financial Times selected Room to Read as the beneficiary of its 2009 seasonal appeal, which included several compelling feature stories and generated over $4.3 million in donations from corporations and individuals.

Please also continue to help us promote literacy this month:

TWEET out the International Literacy Day tweet.
INVEST in the publication of a new children's book for South Africa.