Room to Read Blog

A Lesson in Dedication from Chimbundire Basic School in Zambia

Chimbundire Basic School in Katete never had a library, but its teachers and administrators didn’t let the lack of resources get in the way of ensuring the highest possible quality education for their young students. With only a few books, the school implemented a reading program once per week, and held story sessions under a tree on the school grounds.

When our team in Zambia first visited the school and saw the enthusiasm for reading of the school’s 1,000 students, we knew we wanted to partner with Chimbundire Basic to build a library. With more books and trained librarians, we thought, imagine what they could do!

For this project we would have to start from scratch. An average class size of 114 meant that there was no existing space to spare for bookshelves, so we prepared to build a brand new structure that would both house a library and provide additional storage for the school.

While our team got to work on the building design, the community leaders in Katete met to discuss how they could commit a significant portion of the project costs (as is required by Room to Read), knowing that their extremely rural setting did not provide many resources.

In the end it was decided that each village served by the school would take an entire day molding bricks for the new library. The next day, the neighboring village would do the same, and the rotation would continue until enough bricks were made to finish the project.

After the building was complete, Room to Read provided brightly-colored children’s books to stock the shelves along with chairs and desks for library activities. Then we conducted training (the first of several to take place over the next three years) for three teachers, a school administrator and one member of the community on library management skills like book leveling and community engagement.

In the months since Chimbundire Basic got its first-ever library, things have started to change. More committed than ever to ensuring all children in their community gain a solid foundation in reading, the school’s teachers have begun to take time out of classroom instruction to conduct reading activities in the library. “It is so lovely to have our reading program conducted there,” says the school’s head teacher.

A weekly library period for each class to read and check out books has been implemented school-wide, and the facility remains open before and after school so that students can enjoy the new books in their free time as well. Some of the students still like to take books out to read under the old “library tree,” but they no longer have to.

Learn more about our work in Zambia. 

Supporters Turn to Endurance Sports to Fuel Global Movement for Education

At Room to Read, we are constantly inspired by the creative, clever and sometimes crazy ways that individuals find to raise funds and awareness for our programs—from bake sales to book swaps, marathons to mountain climbing, we have seen it all!

This year in particular, Room to Read supporters around the globe are turning to endurance events to galvanize support for our mission in their communities. Over the next few months, adrenaline-fueled teams from Hong Kong, Sydney, Switzerland and New York City will run, walk, bike and climb their way to world change. Here are a few of those extraordinary stories:

Sydney City2Surf

In 2009—the year Room to Read’s first Australian chapter was established in Sydney—a few volunteers decided to run the City2Surf 14-kilometer race as s social activity. In 2010, they took it to the next level, gathering a team of more than 100 runners who raised over AU$30,000 for two straight years.

This year, the team—dubbed the Yak Pack (in honor of our good friend Zak the Yak)—is at it again, and has even recruited a local celebrity to join them  for this year’s race on August 12. Actor Pacharo Mzembe ran across the entire continent of Australia earlier this year to raise funds and awareness for literacy, and now he’s putting his running shoes back on to join the Yack Pack in their fourth year at the City2Surf. “I'm all about showing my appreciation for the quality education I received having come from a developing nation,” said Pacharo. “There are children around the world who are not afforded the same opportunity."

Jungfrau Marathon

Inspired by their counterparts Down Under, a few members of the Room to Read Zurich Chapter assembled their own Yak Pack this year to run the Jungfrau Marathon in the Swiss Alps. In addition to longtime friends of Room to Read, some of our very own staff will participate in the event, including founder John Wood and regional director for Asia Jon Beaulieu!

The steepest race of its kind, the course of the Jungfrau Marathon includes more than a mile of elevation. In order to keep motivated, the team has challenged themselves to raise enough money for at least one year of girls’ education for each kilometer they run, or as John Wood puts it, "no matter how much pain we're in, each kilometer we'll think to ourselves, 'one more girl goes to school.'"

Vietnam Bike Adventure

After reading John Wood’s book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, Ashwin Subramaniam of Singapore knew he wanted to make a difference, but wasn’t sure how. The answer came in the form of a bicycle, which he will ride across Vietnam this November—along with 15 others—in support of Room to Read's Girls’ Education program.

Winding up the Vietnamese coast from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, Ashwin and his fellow travelers will hit the road for nine days and document their journey on film. "This idea was born out of my dual passions for adventure sports and social development," says Ashwin.

Inspired to start your own campaign for Room to Read? Find out how!

Video Blog: Celebrating Mandela Day and the Power of Language in South Africa

July 18 is Mandela Day, a day aimed at inspiring individuals to take action to help change the world for the better. In addition to encouraging all people to spend 67 minutes of the day engaged in community service (one minute to mark each year Mr. Mandela spent in public service), it is about inspiring a global movement for good.

At Room to Read, we have seen firsthand the challenges South Africa's educational system has faced, not least of which is providing quality reading material in all 11 of the country's official languages. We launched our operations in South Africa six years ago to honor the country's rich linguistic diversity and cultural heritage in storybooks.

In honor of Mandela Day, we asked our South Africa team to reflect on the power of language, and how the availability of high-quality, locally-relevant children's books has affected the lives of the children served by our programs.

Take a look:

 

Lear more about our work in South Africa.

Preschool Teacher in Bangladesh Goes the Extra Mile to Help Her Students Succeed

Gorachora Government Primary School is one of thirty schools to have been selected in 2011 for the launch of our Reading and Writing Instruction program in Bangladesh. After a year of research, material development and program design, our team began to work with first grade teachers from all thirty schools—providing professional development, updated materials and hands-on support.

This year, as we continue to refine our first grade curriculum, the program has expanded to include the second grade classrooms at the same thirty schools. Already, many teachers have started to see the positive impact of their new teaching methods and materials, and they are not the only ones to have noticed.

Ms. Anwara Begun is the preschool teacher for Gorachora Primary. A fairly new endeavor in Bangladesh, preschool has been implemented by the government for all primary schools in recent years. In order to get a sense of what her students have in store for them next year, Ms. Begun decided to visit the first grade classroom and sit in on a few lessons with the Bengla Language teacher.

After experiencing the Room to Read lessons firsthand, Ms. Anwara decided to adopt some of the concepts for her own classroom. She closely observed the pre-writing and pre-reading exercises that the Bengla Language teacher had learned from Room to Read. Designed to help children develop fine motor skills, an awareness of print and book-handling skills, these exercises are perfect for a preschool classroom, and will prepare her students well for the first grade curriculum.

In order to teach these new concepts effectively, Ms. Anwara even replicated some of the materials on her own. She spoke with the Room to Read Field Facilitator assigned to her school and the first grade teacher, training herself on the updated teaching methods for literacy skills.

After employing some of what she’s learned in the classroom, Ms. Anwara is confident that this year’s batch of preschoolers will enter first grade better prepared than those that came before them. And with a teacher as dedicated to her students as Ms. Anwara, we don't doubt it.

Learn more about our work in Bangladesh.

Show and Tell: Celebrating Literacy and Freedom in Zambia

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 is African Freedom Day in Zambia, a holiday celebrating the widespread re-emergence of indigenous African leadership across the continent. In honor of this special day, we bring you a video shot by our team at Chinyuyu School in Chongwe District, where students treated Room to Read staff and some special guests to a performance celebrating the connection between literacy and freedom. Enjoy!

  

Learn more about our work in Zambia.

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.