Room to Read Blog

Guest Blog from Sri Lanka: Nelka's "Need to Read"

Recently, on a trip to visit our programs in Sri Lanka, our team had a chance encounter with Nelka, a young waitress who, as it turns out, knows a thing or two about Room to Read. Reena Luke, our communications manager for Asia, shares her impressions of the team’s meeting with Nelka in a guest post from the field.

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The A-9 highway is a busy truck route in Sri Lanka connecting Mannar in the northwest to the capital, Colombo. On most days, traffic is heavy and a sense of urgency abounds. Police stop vehicles at frequent intervals—checking papers and asking questions—reminding travelers that they are close to the “war zone” where scars are still fresh from dark days past.

Standing in stark contrast to the somber police checkpoints are lush green fields dotted with children on bicycles headed off to school.

Just past the 100 mile marker, our team spots a small hotel that seems the perfect place to stop for a cup of tea and a bite to eat.

Once inside, we are greeted by a young woman named Nelka, who rattles off the breakfast menu with impressive speed.

After serving our food, Nelka approaches our group and asks in perfect English whether we are tourists or on business.

“We’re here for work," shares one member of our group. “We help set up libraries in some of the schools here.”

“Well, you are not the first to do that here,” she counters without skipping a beat. “My school had a library built by an organization called Room to Read.”

At that, we point towards to the parking lot, where our van sits adorned with a Room to Read logo. Nelka squeals with delight, and immediately launches into the story of how she spent hours reading in the library at her school, and as a result, had become proficient in Sri Lanka’s three most prominent languages—Sinhala, Tamil and English. She spoke of the “tri-lingual” books she had enjoyed and the “need to read” they had helped to cultivate within her.

“I passed my A-levels a year ago with good marks,” she shares, adding that her voracious appetite for reading has only grown since graduation, thanks to weekly trips to her community's public library.

When the time comes to rejoin the traffic on the A-9 highway once again, we say goodbye to Nelka, but I can still see her in my rearview mirror as we pull away, waving vigorously. In that moment it occurrs to me that the traffic, the checkpoints and the long journey are all worth it, so long as more children like Nelka in this part of Sri Lanka that have seen such hard times, have a place to go where they can learn and play safely.

Learn more about our work establishing libraries, and about our programs in Sri Lanka.

 

Don't forget to help us spread the word this month about our campaigns for literacy!

Join our tweet campaign! Each RT will donate $1 to our literacy programs in Asia and Africa (up to $30,000) thanks to Random House, Inc. Click to Tweet!

 

Throughout September, all donations to our library programs will be matched up to $40,000 thanks to our partner, Better World Books. Click to donate.

Library in Nepal Turns Primary School Children into Public Health Activists

Saroj Lama and Anita Bista are 5^th grade students at the Shree Pratibha Primary School in the Kavre region of Nepal. Plagued by high illiteracy rates, the Kavre region also suffers from a widespread lack of awareness regarding proper health and sanitation. The streets are often littered with trash, putting the community, and children in particular, at risk for injury or disease.

Anita and Saroj had never given much thought to the negative implications of their community’s sanitation issues until one day they came upon a book on the subject at their school’s Room to Read library. That day, the two students turned into budding community health activists.

Inspired by their new-found knowledge, Anita and Saroj started a grassroots program at their school to improve their community’s health and sanitation record. “We looked around our littered village and decided it was high time we did something to clean the mess up,” says Saroj, who immediately began rallying support from parents and teachers at his school.

Together he and Anita initiated a door-to-door awareness campaign that had them performing songs with their fellow students throughout the community about the importance of proper hygiene and waste disposal practices.

“The library encouraged them to think outside their comfort zone,” says one teacher, who helped Anita and Saroj with their project.

“The books about the environment helped us visualize what we wanted to achieve,” echoes Anita. “With our vision clear, it was easy to share it and to convince the community to help us conserve our shared environment.”

Thanks to Anita and Saroj, the streets of their small community in the Kavre region are cleaner than ever, and perhaps more importantly, they have witnessed first-hand the power a few dedicated individuals have to create positive change in their community.

Read more about our work establishing libraries or about our programs in Nepal.

Don't forget to help us spread the word this month about our campaigns for literacy!

Join our tweet campaign! Each RT will donate $1 to our literacy programs in Asia and Africa (up to $30,000) thanks to Random House, Inc. Click to Tweet!

 

Throughout September, all donations to our library programs will be matched up to $40,000 thanks to our partner, Better World Books. Click to donate.

Parents in South Africa Celebrate Mandela Day by Giving Back All Year Long

In 2009, the United Nations officially declared July 18 as Nelson Mandela Day, which also happens to be Mandela’s birthday. As a birthday present to the man who spent 67 years in politics serving his people, South Africans and others around the world spend 67 minutes on July 18 in service of others. The hope is that their collective efforts will effect positive change in the world.

Here at Room to Read, we are firm believers that small acts of service can have big results, so we asked our team in South Africa’s Eastern Cape how some of the members of their community would be celebrating Mandela Day. What we found were three parents who have taken Mandela’s creed of service to heart, but have gone above and beyond the traditional 67 minutes—volunteering in their local libraries all year long.

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Ms. Nomathamsanqa Payiya has been volunteering full-time at Lumanyano Public School since January 2010. She was inspired to take an active role in the library when she learned that her son, although in 7th grade, had not yet learned to read well.

When the principal of her son’s school, Mr. Jongilanga, announced in a parents' meeting that Room to Read had established a library at the school, and that he needed assistance from parents to operate it, she jumped at the chance. For Nomathamsanqa, having a library in her community—an informal settlement with an extremely low literacy rate—is a dream come true.

Even though her son has now moved on to the local secondary school, Nomathamsanqa continues to volunteer Monday through Friday—helping young readers with their homework, reading aloud and making book recommendations to new visitors. She also assists the head librarian with book processing, classification and display of the reading materials.

For Mr. Jongilanga, having such dedicated volunteers is extremely important. Parents like Nomathamsanqa, he says, not only allow the library to run smoothly, but forge a tighter bond between the school and the community. Recently, the parents of the school got together, inspired by their children’s enthusiasm for reading, and asked Mr. Jongilanga to open an Adult Education Center on the premises and start a reading club on weekends.

Having only completed her schooling up to 7th grade, Nomathamsanqa is proud to be helping the children of her community become independent readers and complete their education. She reports that attendance at the library increases everyday, with many children becoming “regulars” who visit on a daily basis.

A few miles away, at Msundulo Primary School, our team met two other adults that are Room to Read library regulars. Mr. Kholisile Nelson Felani is the chairperson of Msundulo School Governing Body. His dream is that his children complete their education, as he never had the opportunity to do so.

As part of the School Governing Body, Kholisile helps to ensure operations run smoothly. He initially participated in the construction of the library building, and since then has volunteered on a weekly basis—stamping library books, updating check-out logs and tidying up the facility.

Kholisile is glad to have a library in town because of his neighborhood’s high rate of illiteracy. He encourages the local children to spend as much time reading as possible, and views the community’s investment in education as an important step in lowering the crime rate.

Among other benefits, he says the library’s inclusion of newspapers and magazines among its materials allows adults in the community to keep abreast of local news and search for employment opportunities.

Ms. Noluthando Kame also volunteers in the Msundulo school library. With two children at the school, she relishes any opportunity to be a part of their education. When the library assistant passed away early this year, Noluthando volunteered to take over without hesitation.

Having completed her own education a few years ago after passing the high school exit exam, Noluthando loves reading, and makes it a point to help slower readers improve by leading spelling games and word puzzles. She has become a mentor in the community for many students, and says she is continually inspired to serve by the dedication her community’s school has shown to providing a quality education for all its students.

Thanks to the commitment of parents like Ms. Payiya, Mr. Felani and Ms. Kame across South Africa, it's clear that Mr. Mandela's legacy of service continues to inspire.

Learn more about our programs in South Africa.

Show and Tell: Students Go Global in England

Often at Room to Read, our quest to lead a global movement to support developing world education takes us on the road. Between our global office in San Francisco, California, seven international fundraising offices, 53 chapters worldwide, and 10 program countries…at any given time it’s a safe bet that somewhere in the world, a member of the our team is in transit—by plane, on foot, or even by boat—raising funds, building awareness and implementing programs on behalf of Room to Read.

On these voyages, there seems to be a pattern: send a passionate, enthusiastic Room to Read team member out into the field, and they will return with stories of inspiring individuals they met along the way.

Without further ado, we welcome you to the first installment of our newest blog feature: Show and Tell. When we come across a great photo or other tidbit while out and about, we’ll post it here, and you can let us know what you think.

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Today’s photos come from Jill Carlson, a development fellow who helps students around the world find ways to get involved with Room to Read. Jill is in England this week, where she is working on the Go Global Challenge—a competition in which high school students are challenged to come up with entrepreneurial fundraising plans to fund our programs in Asia and Africa. So far, the ideas have been incredibly impressive, as has the students’ dedication to helping their peers in developing countries.

Here are some pictures Jill shared of students in Blackburn, England, working on their Room to Read fundraising plans:

Learn more about Student Engagement at Room to Read.

On World Refugee Day: Finding Refuge in Sri Lanka Classrooms

Although the civil war in Sri Lanka recently ended between the government and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (aka Tamil Tigers), a return to normalcy for most families has yet to occur. Passage through to the north of Sri Lanka is heavily monitored and individuals need special government clearance just to visit the area. The road to the war-torn Mannar District in the Northern Province, where Room to Read has been invited to work, is freshly tarred and empty of traffic except for an odd military truck or a land rover. Police check-posts are replaced with military check-posts every 50 yards and the road is fenced on both sides with barbed wire, indicating that the areas beyond are still mine-ridden. This is the story of one recent visit to three schools in Mannar.

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The Tamil community here is tight-lipped and wary of strangers. Many of them still continue to stay in the guarded government-run "internally displaced people" camps ("IDP camps"), a stark indicator of their refugee status in their own country. Others have been allowed to return to their villages.

“The two main concerns for the people here are health and education. The priority for most families is to send their children back to school,” says Mary Matilda Pillai, the principal of a school in one local village in Mannar which will soon be receiving Room to Read’s support for classroom libraries.

Unlike earlier times when the Catholic Church or missionaries managed most schools, now all the schools in Sri Lanka are under the control of the government—which is actively encouraging children to go back to school but the lack of basic infrastructure and safe buildings poses a big challenge. As a result, many nonprofit agencies have been invited by the government to help contribute to school and educational system improvements.

Room to Read launched operations in Sri Lanka following the devastating tsunami in 2005. Last year, we moved into the war-torn Mannar District to work with 43 schools and local communities in three villages. Here, we are providing libraries, books and in some cases, building schools and classrooms.

At one local school, the staff and teachers are elated with the books they received from Room to Read this past January. The colorful books are all prominently displayed in a corner library where the children, for the first time, have story books in their own language. In fact, several students decided to spontaneously read their favorite stories aloud to show off their reading skills to our visiting staff.

“Before Room to Read gave us books we just had nine books in our library and the tragedy was, despite our children being able to read, they did not have access to any books!” says principal J. Wijeykumar. “Now both teachers and students are excited about taking books home and there is a noticeable improvement in their class work.”

“Scholastic books like ‘Seven Wonder’ and the ‘Magic School Bus’ has made teaching easy and interesting and I depend on some of these books to teach,” says the senior school English teacher. Adds the science teacher, “The community is happy with this facility because they realize that their children have a better future if they are educated.”

At another village school, the excitement is even more palpable. The children take us to a room where the new school furniture is stacked high and one student points to the pile and says animatedly, “Soon we will have a new classroom with new tables and chairs so we will not have to sit on the floor anymore!”

Their school principal, Mr. Robert Amalathasan explains, “Room to Read is supporting us at every step of this construction. After years of misfortune, the children have something to look forward to. We are going to make the best use of this opportunity and make this school a happy place for the kids.”

While students in these two schools are celebrating, at another nearby village, students and teachers are anxiously waiting for Room to Read to arrive. According to Patricia Ammal, a senior teacher, “This school was established in 1932 and was a thriving school until the war breached its walls. Today, the school looks more like a dilapidated military barrack and as a result, parents prefer to send their children to other schools."

But Ms. Ammal is optimistic that once they have a new library filled with child-friendly books in the local language, there will be a big change. Sharing her final thought, Ms. Ammal says, “Our hopes are now pinned on Room to Read’s support. For the displaced people here, education is the only way forward.”

Learn more about our programs in Sri Lanka.

One School Takes Global Literacy Local and Makes Year-long Commitment

Room to Read’s Students Helping Students program started when students began raising awareness and funds on behalf of the organization following the 2005 Asian tsunami. Since then, schools and communities around the world have worked tirelessly to support Room to Read in big and small ways—from bake sales and read-a-thons to large-scale events, student groups have taken action on behalf of literacy and gender equality in education. 

 

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As with many of our best relationships, our partnership with the John Eliot School, an elementary school in Needham, Massachusetts, came to us by way of a dedicated Room to Read chapter. In this case, Boston chapter leader Wendy McAllister had been working with the Eliot school and forging a friendship with its principal, Ms. Suzanne Wilcox, when a partnership was born. Ms. Wilcox saw the connection between Room to Read’s work and her own school’s challenges almost immediately.

Despite being a high-performing school, the Eliot School’s literacy test scores had reached a plateau. Once she learned more about Room to Read’s work, Ms. Wilcox realized that taking the global literacy movement local might be just the way to improve performace at Eliot. “It occurred to me that becoming involved with this organization just might be the ticket to engaging students in more recreational reading, resulting in improved rates of literacy for the students at Eliot,” said Ms. Wilcox. “Developing an interactive program with Room to Read would naturally align with our school and district goals, 'to advance standards-based learning, develop the social and emotional skills of all students, and promote active citizenship'.”

Ms. Wilcox knew that the success of embedding Room to Read’s work within the school’s curriculum wouldn’t ultimately hinge on her, but on the talented and dedicated faculty at the Eliot School so she presented the idea to her colleagues. "In a matter of minutes, the room erupted with enthusiasm,” she said. Brainstorming ensued. At the end of their meeting, the teachers agreed to collaboratively create a curriculum spanning classrooms and content areas. Ms. Wilcox applied for and received a grant from the Needham Education Foundation to sponsor staff development days for teachers to come together to plan out the year ahead. Their sessions resulted in three components that led to the school’s success: summer reading (adult and student), classroom buddies, and the Eliot School Cultural Diversity Day celebration.  

Planning for success from the beginning, Ms. Wilcox and her team put on a skit just before the start of summer vacation. She and a teacher posed as a student and teacher and explained to the children the importance of a summer read-a-thon.  To the students, "it seemed unthinkable that so many of the world's children, partuclarly girls, had no access to books or education."  Shortly after, the school’s motto for the summer was formed: “Give the gift of literacy while receiving it yourself!” The students left for the summer, reading logs in tow, revved up to read more than ever before. In addition, parents and teachers were given copies of John Wood's Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, to further unite the community in this effort. “Research shows that when children see their parents reading, it encourages them to read as well,” Ms. Wilcox added. At the end of the read-a-thon the students and teachers were thrilled to discover they had raised $5,000 and that over 85% of the students had participated!

Once the summer read-a-thon ended, the "reading mileage" challenge began. Ms. Wilcox and her team decided to have their buddy pairs (one upper-grade student and one lower-grade student) calculate the mileage needed to travel to their Room to Read country of choice and back to Needham. Those miles then converted into pages and with their itineraries set, the pairs took off on their read-around-the-world challenge.  As a result, every buddy pair read their way to their country and back, and some made the trip more than once! 

The school’s year-long focus on Room to Read and its program countries culminated in the Eliot School Cultural Diversity Day celebration, where classrooms presented their projects on Room to Read countries. Throughout the project, parents had many opportunities to engage in the overall reading goals of the school, including several opportunities to participate in book discussions. From classroom buddies to logging their miles, the students, staff, and families of the John Eliot School truly demonstrated that literacy is a priority, both at home and abroad. 

As Ms. Wilcox examined her test data last fall, it was clear the campus-wide campaign had worked; students' scores showed marked progress in both English language arts and mathematics, particularly among special education students. “The notion that Room to Read could serve as a catalyst to help students explore and understand world issues, offer students an opportunity to take action and increase the volume of student reading with the outcome of an improvement in overall literacy rates was simply something we could not pass up,” she said. 

The Eliot School is kicking off its second annual summer read-a-thon this summer and is looking ahead to a school year full of service learning tied to Room to Read’s mission. Learn more about our Students Helping Students program or email Jill Carlson at jill.carlson@roomtoread.org.

Photo caption: Director of the Cambodia office of Room to Read Kann Kall poses with members of Allison Dick's 3rd grade class. From Left: Lila North, Jenna Sandler, Kurt Brinkhaus and Brian Poolman. Photo credit: Credit Robert Rosen

 

Homecoming in Nepal: Anita and Anju Reunite with Mom

Kamlari is a historically accepted social custom among the indigenous Tharu community in Nepal, in which poor families contract out their daughters into bonded labor. While the practice is now technically illegal, an estimated 20,000 Kamlari girls are still living as indentured laborers. Room to Read's Girls' Education program is one of the many levers of change being used to help free these girls and provide them with access to a quality education. Anita and Anju Tharu are two such girls.

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Winter in the flatlands of Bardiya can be quite unpredictable, especially when hanging laundry outside on the line. As sisters Anita and Anju found out, when you hang your clothes out to dry, the weather might not cooperate. On a cold morning recently, Anita rushed to school wearing a blue skirt, a blue shirt and a blue sweater—the ubiquitous school uniform in Nepali schools. Once in class, she spread out her skirt and sat on the driest part. Anita had argued with her mother that morning about attending school in damp clothes. She diligently sat near the hearth, waved her skirt about in the air, and hoped and prayed her skirt would be dry enough to attend class. She had succeeded.

 

Her older sister, Anju, wasn’t so lucky and had to skip school that day. “I’d take school over staying home any day,” said Anju.  “I’m wondering what my sister is doing right now. Maybe she’s studying. Yes, I know she is. She frets about missing her lessons. I bet she’s even completing assignments in new chapters!” she exclaimed in envy.

It hasn’t been long since the Tharu sisters re-enrolled in school. Their attendance symbolizes the girls’ struggle for education and freedom.

It all started with a fight that landed their father in jail. With the family's main breadwinner unable to support them, Anita and Anju's mother, Rama Tharu, made an extremely difficult and painful choice: she asked her daughters to drop out of school. As their education came to an abrupt halt, their lives as Kamlaris—or bonded laborers—began. Gone were the days of careless mischief, or running around in the fields and coming home from school and finding a hot meal waiting for them. Those days were to be replaced by endless hours of chores, including caring for children who were not much older than them. At the time they left school to become Kamlari workers, Anju was just 11 years old and Anita was 10.

“Seeing my daughters go was the hardest blow," says Rama. "Suddenly I was all alone.” Her days without her two daughters were lonely. “Those two years were the slowest years I’ve ever faced. I would work through the entire day, plowing fields and doing any other manual labor that came my way.”

Since her husband was in jail, local work was hard to find. The community around her stigmatized Rama and her family, forcing her to commute longer distances to find work. Nevertheless, she prevailed and vowed to make her daughters stop working as soon as she could afford to do so. Her hope resurfaced when the 
Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), a Room to Read partner organization, started a campaign to end the Kamlari pratha, or system. With their assistance, and after two long years of constant labor, Anita and Anju were finally rescued and brought back home.

“Homecoming was great,” remembers Anju. “We hadn't had the chance to see each  other much during the past two years and when we finally got to see each other, it was something else. We all cried sweet tears of joy.” That night, Rama and her daughters sat down in their small kitchen, made a fire and cooked up their first homemade meal together in years.

Through Room to Read’s partnership with NYOF and the Girl's Education program, Anita and Anuj were able to re-enroll in school. Being selected for the program meant that the girls could continue their studies and focus on their education, forever ending their lives at Kamlari workers. Both of the girls are attending Shree Tribhuwan Higher Secondary School, where Anita is now in 5th grade and Anju is in 7th grade. Anita dreams of becoming a business owner. “As soon as I am able to do so,” she says, “I want to help my mother so that we don’t have to struggle financially anymore.”  Anju wants to study for as long as possible and ensure she can do it well.  “I had never thought that I’d be able to go to school again. Now that I have the chance I want to utilize it well,” she says.

Only 5 days left! All gifts made to our Girls’ Education program during the month of May will be matched up to $350,000. Support the next generation of women today at www.roomtoread.org/MayMatch.

 

Bangladesh Hits Lucky Number 13

Many of the details were the same: the same 13 girls, the same month, even the same day. But it was a new year, and the difference felt by the girls, their families and Room to Read's Bangladesh team could hardly be greater. Where there was disappointment before, there was now excitement. It was the second time this cohort of girls had taken the public exam to complete 5th grade but this year, they had passed!

  Room to Read has been supporting these 13 girls—along with 219 of their peers in the sandbar islands of the Sirajganj district in Bangladesh—since the last quarter of 2009 as part of the Girls' Education program. At the time, a little over half of the total 232 girls in the program were in 5th grade, while the rest were in 6th grade. The final exams for both grades were only two months away when Room to Read first started to provide the girls with tutoring support, and while the majority of them successfully passed and were promoted to the next grade level—13 of the girls did not.

It was an early blow to a program that was only in its first year of operations in Bangladesh. In 2009, the country team had inadequate time to support the poorly performing girls. But in 2010, that wasn't the case.

The first hurdle after the disappointing exam results was to convince the parents of the 13 girls to continue their daughters’ education. It was a struggle, since the parents had low confidence in their girls’ ability to pass on the second attempt. When the girls finally did restart their education in 2010, Room to Read assessed their academic performance and the results weren’t encouraging. Most of the girls were having difficulty with very basic early-grade mathematics, and the English language, for them, was synonymous with ‘scary ghost.’ Thus, the Girls' Education program team carefully designed intensive year-round tutoring support for the girls, and enlisted volunteer part-time educators to spend hours after school and during weekends to prepare the girls for their second chance at the exam.

Finally, the day of the results had arrived. After much anxious waiting, the schools finally confirmed that all of the girls passed! In fact, one student, Aklima, received a first-division score, which is rare for girls studying in such remote locations of Bangladesh. The joy felt by the Room to Read team was further multiplied after hearing the news that each of the other 219 girls passed as well, advancing to 7th and 8th grade, respectively.

It’s a small victory, but one that our team considers a lucky one because, in Bangladesh, "luck" means a combination of preparation and opportunity.

Room to Read Bangladesh thanks everyone who has supported these girls as they’ve worked to improve the conditions of their lives through education—they're very "lucky" to have your support!

 Read more about our work in Bangladesh and our Girls' Education program.

From now through the end of May, all donations to our Girls’ Education program will be matched up to $250,000. www.roomtoread.org/MayMatch.

 

Freedom to Learn: A Guest Blog from South Africa

Chris Mothupi, Room to Read's Country Director in South Africa, recently attended an awards ceremony organized by the Mpumalanga Department of Education to recognize schools in the province that are demonstrating an outstanding commitment to using their library. The winner of the “Library of the Year” award happened to be a Room to Read library and in today's blog, in honor of South Africa's Freedom Day holiday, Chris shares how the students came prepared with a few words to express how their library has given them the "freedom to learn." 

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“Room to Read, where were you during that time when we struggled for education?
Where were you during those days when we did not have libraries that brought us liberation?
But we forgive you now because your birth in South Africa brought us knowledge,
Because of you, children from schools are now able to read, write and broaden their knowledge.”

These lines come from a poem that was written and presented by first graders from Malwana Primary School during a ceremony I attended on March 18 in honor of the provincial library week organized by the Mpumalanga Department of Education. The occasion was to recognize schools that have shown significant improvement in the usage of their libraries by students and teachers, and of the 300 primary and secondary schools that participated in the competition, Malwana Primary School stole the show that day as it scooped up the prestigious “Mpumalanga Provincial Library of the Year” award.

Their win and the fact that the children were so inspired by their library as to write a poem about it, swelled me with immense pride. But it was their metaphor of a  library as a liberator to knowledge that takes on special significance, because today is South Africa’s Freedom Day holiday. It was on April 27 in 1994 that all South Africans had the opportunity to vote in the country's first post-apartheid democratic election. We celebrate this day because it is a reminder to us of how Nelson Mandela, an icon of liberation for me and many of my countrymen, inspired change and acceptance in an historically divided nation. [See Chris’ guest blog about Nelson Mandela International Day.] 

 

I remember well what Mandela implored on a day that I was honored to hear him speak. He said children must go to school and learn, because how can you have freedom if you do not have education?

 
Room to Read began working at the Malwana Primary School in 2009 when, in collaboration with Mpumalanga Department of Education and the community of Manyeleti village, we converted one of the school's unused classrooms into a library. Shelves, library desks, tables and books were soon provided and the teachers and the school’s governing body members, along with the principal Mr. Rambele, were also trained by Room to Read on library management and ways to engage students in library activities to enhance their literacy skills. Mr. Rambele and his staff then took it upon themselves to work diligently with the local village chief to mobilize the community and encourage children and parents to visit the library and make use of the resources on regular basis.

Today, the library is fully utilized by students and teachers from the Malwana school and the larger Manyeleti village. During the weekday afternoons and on Saturdays it remains open for neighbouring schools and communities to access. By establishing the library at the this school and in this community, Room to Read has contributed significantly to the villagers’ newfound appreciation of the empowerment that comes with being educated.

But, for me, it is not Room to Read's presence that makes libraries at schools like Malwana Primary School successful. Instead it is what those schools and teachers and students do with the resources, and the community's dedication to supporting them, that will make an everlasting impact on their education. It is an education that is essential to their continued freedom to make informed choices, and I am confident that Room to Read will continue to be a catalyst for change in South Africa by giving children the "freedom to learn." The Malwana Primary School is a testament to that.

To learn more about Room to Read’s work in South Africa, click here.

New Year Celebration in Laos is Awash with Tradition

April in Laos is a very wet time of year. Not only is it the start of the monsoon season and the time when farmers start planting most of their crops, it’s also Bpee Mai or Songkan— the Lao New Year—the most important celebration for Laotians worldwide. The festival, like the weather, is replete with water. On April 13, the first day of the celebration, water is used to clean houses and the village. The second day represents the day in between the old year and the new year. Strictly observed as a day of rest, only fun activities are allowed, the most popular of which is dousing friends and unsuspecting passersby with water.

The New Year officially starts on April 15, the third day of the festival. Young people prepare scented water with flowers and visit their grandparents, parents and elders. They rinse the elders’ hands with the water and ask for their blessing and forgiveness for any wrong-doings in the past year. At home, prior to enjoying a large feast, families engage in a special ceremony called "Baci" in which participants take turns tying blessed white strings around each other’s wrists to wish them good luck and prosperity for the new year. This tradition runs deep among Laotian people as an homage and blessing that upholds the value of life, and of social and family bonds.

Room to Read’s Lao New Year is a colorfully illustrated children's book about this annual holiday. The drawings, by Laotian artist Sikko Milakong, show the many elements of the New Year celebration, including families participating in the Baci ceremony and having fun splashing water on each other.

One of several oversized books published by Room to Read, Lao New Year’s large size makes it even more enticing to eager young readers. Room to Read started publishing “big books” in Vietnam in 2008 as a tool to help teachers and librarians interact more effectively with young children, many of whom are just learning to read. In addition to the books, Room to Read also provides supplemental instructional materials, such as teacher’s guides with questions and activities that further engage the children in learning.

Adding cultural relevance to our books allows children to predict words or easily familiarize themselves with them because they know what the people in the illustrations are doing and already possess the vocabulary that naturally accompanies the pictures. It also makes it easier for them to learn from activities they perform themselves, such as visiting the temples with family members to sprinkle water on Buddha statues.

As a global organization, we honor and respect the cultural traditions of our friends and colleagues worldwide—and we try to incorporate them in our materials so that children not only learn to read, but also learn that their traditions are respected by those outside of their local communities.

 

To our Lao friends and colleagues, all of us at Room to Read send a virtual bucketful of water and a warm "Sabadee pimai!" or "Happy New Year!"

Learn more about our work in Laos and our Local Language Publishing program.