Room to Read Blog

Guest Blog from Sri Lanka: Sajitha's Library Club

Trish Flanagan is a project fellow from the Clinton School of Public Service, who is currently researching community engagement best practices for our School Libraries. This work will inform Room to Read’s Global Guidelines on Family and Community Engagement. Trish has worked as a high school teacher at the Texas-Mexican border and a school principal in Honduras. In this guest blog, she shares her experience visiting one community in Sri Lanka.

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The room was dark and hot, full of eager library club members sitting in plastic chairs and a few visitors standing against the wall of the small house.  The rest of us sat quietly as the library club president, 11 year-old Sajitha, flanked by her executive officers, welcomed everyone to the meeting.

In a rural, farming community in central Sri Lanka, the team of dedicated Room to Read staff, brought me to this weekly library club meeting. We had spent the last few weeks darting around the country; visiting energized government schools and awe-inspiring libraries in the homes of young students. Yet, sitting in that small house, watching the bright eyes of the students and their quiet parents as Sajitha opened the meeting, I was amazed.

Sajitha’s family, living in this simple 2-bedroom house with curtains blowing in the doorways to offer privacy, transformed one of the bedrooms into the library.  The library is organized exactly as the Room to Read library at school; bookshelves holding books organized by reading levels and topics, a small desk covered with student drawings from the stories they read, a meticulous checkout list and a few English-Sinhala dictionaries.

A few minutes after the meeting started, I wanted to ask the students how they created the club. They were very shy, so I pulled out a few of my teacher tricks to encourage the students to feel more comfortable.

Sajitha, the president, proudly smiling in her chair, explained that she asked her two friends, the executive officers, to start the club. Her parents were very excited to oblige and offered the club a room in their house. One by one, students invited their friends to check out books and attend meetings. One parent even said that many adults in the nearby community check out books and have improved their reading with year-round access to books right in the neighborhood. With training and support provided during community awareness raising meetings at the library, Room to Read staff helped to prepare these students to bring their love of reading to their homes. This small library club, started by such a young girl, is changing the lives and possibilities for an entire community.

While this library club is amazing, it is not at all surprising. The work that Room to Read teams do, with the communities they serve, is incredible. Parents and school staff excitedly explain that Room to Read is different from other programs. They do not only deliver books and library resources, the staff build relationships and teach the community about the habit of reading and maintaining the library. What is even more outstanding is the energy and determination of these rural communities, all challenged with financial stress, and some, like in the northern regions of the country, are rebuilding their communities after 20 years of civil war. The schools and families place a high value on education and when offered support from Room to Read, incredible things happen.

During an interview with community members, one parent, leaning forward in his chair, explained that before they had nothing and now have an opportunity for a new life, calling rebuilding the school and establishing a library a “different kind of change.”

Learn more about our School Libraries.

Big News from the ICC World T20 Tournament in Sri Lanka: Room to Read and ICC Bring Cricketers' Stories to Life

There is a lot of excitement around the ICC World T20 cricket championships in Sri Lanka these days, but not all of it is on the pitch. In partnership with the International Cricket Council, Room to Read has released two new original children’s books based on the lives of cricket stars Virat Kohli of India and Angelo Mathews of Sri Lanka. Amid the ICC World T20 excitement, we caught up with the writer of Virat’s Inning and the illustrator of Little Angelo’s Big Day in Cricket, to hear more about their experiences bringing the stars’ stories to life.

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Aruna Keerthi Gamage, illustrator of Little Angelo’s Big Day in Cricket, has been involved with Room to Read’s Book Publishing program for five years and has illustrated more than 10 books in Sri Lanka.

Room to Read: What made you interested in illustrating for children?

Aruna:  I read children’s story books while I was growing up—especially those from the Soviet Union and China. I realized that good children’s books manage to strike a harmony between storyline and illustrations. You cannot separate the two.  As I got older, my curiosity for learning the art of illustration also grew, so I started searching for new training opportunities in this area.

Room to Read: How was the concept for Angelo’s book developed?

Aruna:  Angelo’s book was a challenge since it was a biography and I had to determine how true I wanted to stay to his actual life. I had to imagine his childhood in my mind. I also tried to imagine what an aspiring cricketer would go through in this country—the feeling of wanting to play for their country.

For research, I surveyed newspaper articles, the internet and other archival materials to observe his features and physical attributes. I also met Angelo and his family members and did extensive interviews with them.

Room to Read: What makes an illustrator successful? What advice do you have for aspiring illustrators?

Aruna: Well, first and foremost: understand children. Illustrations should talk to children and be attractive. Think out of the box and also, newcomers should have the ability to observe the world around them.

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Bimal Mohan is a sports journalist by profession, but his passion for writing led him to Room to Read. He found his niche within our Book Publishing program in India, and authored this year’s original title Virat’s Inning, based on the life of cricket star Virat Kohli.

Room to Read: What initially interested you in writing children’s stories?

Bimal:  Well, being a sports journalist, the one question that we often ask sports stars is how they plan to give back to the game. This question stands true for me as a journalist, too. I believe that our generation will only leap forward when we give back to society. So when I got an offer to write for children, I had no second thoughts.

Room to Read: Was it difficult writing a book on a famous cricketer?

Bimal: Yes and No. No, because this exercise was in a way similar to reporting as a sports journalist. Yes, because normally when we write our news reports, we do so for audiences which are at least young adults and upwards and not small children. Writing for children requires a different outlook.

Room to Read: What interested you most in Virat’s story?

Bimal: Irrespective of the sport, every champion has a unique story. All of them cross a difficult hurdle to reach the pinnacle—athletes like Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, Sachin Tendulkar and Lance Armstrong. Virat is no different. He is a true champion in the making.

He lost his father in the midst of playing an important match, but continued to play, which speaks volumes about his mental state. Sports teach a lesson about duty, honor and teamwork. Virat Kohli learned it the hard way and came out the other side with flying colors. 

Room to Read: What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Bimal: Observe, persevere and read as much as you can.

Learn more about our partnership with ICC at http://www.roomtoread.org/wt20

Guest Blog: A New Chapter for the Tamil Community in Sri Lanka's Central Province

This is a guest post by Jen Spinner, Program Reporting Associate, who shares her reflections from a recent trip to visit Room to Read's work.

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Upon landing in Sri Lanka, one can immediately sense the impact and devastation caused by the country’s recent civil war. While the conflict officially ended three years ago, 300,000 Sri Lankans are still displaced and many communities still lack access to basic infrastructure.

Lying in the middle of the Central Province, Hatton is one of Sri Lanka’s largest tea production regions and home to one of the country’s largest Tamil populations, many of whom work upwards of 14 hours a day on tea plantations. Schools in this area fight for government assistance, often going months or years without access to new textbooks and learning materials.

It is within this reality that Room to Read’s Tamil Literacy and Girls’ Education programs operate, working with families and communities that have been largely forgotten by the country’s reconstruction efforts. As I moved from classroom to classroom and home to home, I heard girls we work with share stories of the personal impact their country’s war had on their lives, weeping for lost relatives and friends. But juxtaposed upon this immense sadness is a palpable sense of determination to succeed in school and provide for their remaining family.

One of my last stops in Hatton was a school at the top of the region’s highest peak that serves 1^st to 12^th grade students. Driving past homes which lacked access to electricity and running water, the obstacles these students face each day simply getting to school became obvious. As we stepped into the school’s main courtyard, students clamored to show our team their favorite books and literacy exercises, growing more excited which each new activity. In Sri Lanka, Room to Read is the only organization ever to provide an early grade literacy program in the Tamil language, so both students and teachers are extremely proud. As we prepared to leave school for the day, Sinthuja, a 10^th grader, invited our team to her home to meet her mother and see her “homework wall.”  During the trek from school, my heart sank at the realization that Sinthuja makes this trip every day, sometimes leaving school after dark to take the forested trail alone.

Sinthuja’s mother is a tea picker, spending 15-16 hours each day in the fields (despite terrible arthritis) to support her six children. Even with such an incredibly demanding schedule, Sinthuja’s mother comes home every night and asks about her daughter's day at school, without exception.  

Upon arriving at Sinthuja’s home, I was immediately drawn to a curtained corner at the far right of the 12x15 structure. This was the only part of the one room-house that was partitioned in any way for privacy from the home’s seven occupants. When I asked Sinthuja’s mother about the space, she explained that behind the curtain is her daughter’s study area/home library, meant to provide some reprieve from the distraction of the busy house. Despite its small size, this space really impacted me, a physical manifestation of the entire family’s commitment to Sinthuja’s education.

And it’s not just Sinthuja’s family who is benefitting from her staying in school. Her community, which sits on the outskirts of Hatton's city center, is extremely remote, and the only means of transportation for its residents is an ever-changing and unreliable bus system. Given the poor quality of local roadways, the routes themselves change frequently, leaving residents with a major challenge when they need to get to work.

As the only member of her village who can read Tamil, Sinthuja now wakes up before dawn to go outside and read the directions and route information to her friends and family. While this may seem like a small act, her efforts save neighbors hours each day, allowing them to arrive on time to work and relieving the extra stress that used to precede a 16-hour day.

“It’s a miracle,” says Sinthuja’s mother, as she describes the vital role that education allowed her daughter to play within the village. Neglected by so many institutions and organizations, Sinthuja and her peers now have hope—a means to a brighter future than the labor cycles they were born into.

Join Room to Read in celebrating International Literacy Day throughout the month of September. For each action you take, $1 will be donated to support our work.  Learn more at www.roomtoread.org/ILD2012.

Show and Tell: Cricket Star Angelo Mathews Becomes the Character in New Children's Book, with Help from Room to Read

Cricket superstar Angelo Mathews is used to being at the center of attention, but last week the co-captain of the Sri Lanka team gained a new form of notoriety as the protagonist of a children's book published by Room to Read.

Funded by the International Cricket Council, Little Angelo's Big Day tells the story in Sinhala and Tamil of 10-year-old Angelo, who goes to watch his father play a friendly cricket match. After one of the player's becomes ill, it is up to Little Angelo to join the game and score the final run.

The book was launched in a ceremony at the Sri Lanka Foundation in Colombo on August 13. In attendance were 36 students from our partner schools, including several girls from our Girls' Education program in Hatton who have formed their very own cricket team (and won the under 16 tournament).

After the book had been revealed, Angelo read aloud from another Room to Read title and joined an illustration workshop with the students. He then fielded questions from the inquisitive crowd. "I wanted to be an artist and paint nice pictures," he said of his school days, "but my favorite subject was Mathematics."

When asked about his involvement with Room to Read, Angelo had this to say: “Let us do our level best for improving the literacy levels in this country.”

Learn more about our Book Publishing program.

On World Refugee Day: A Physician in the Making

Although the civil war in Sri Lanka officially ended in 2009, the country is still recovering from more than 25 years of internal conflict. The war turned many families—particularly in the northern provinces—into refugees in their own country. In honor of World Refugee Day, we bring you a story from one formerly war-torn Sri Lankan community that is full of hope for the future.

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In a far corner of the North Central Province—surrounded by acres of fields—lies Wahalkada, a farming village where the residents are beginning to rebuild their lives after years of war.

Chaturangi, a seventh grader at nearby Wahalkada Vidyalaya School, exemplifies the hopeful spirit that permeates her entire community. Along with 53 other girls at her school, Chaturangi was selected last year to participate in Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program. With a younger brother in preschool, she is committed to completing her education and setting a good example.  “When I was accepted into the program, I knew this was my moment to change my life,” she shares candidly. “Until I got that opportunity, I did not know how I would continue on in school.”

Single-minded in her ambition, Chaturangi dreams of becoming a doctor—inspired by a female physician that treated her as a child. After participating in the goal-setting portion of Room to Read’s life skills training last year, Chaturangi drew out a goals chart to hang on the wall of her tiny bedroom—neatly arranged beside her “study space” and a treasured stack of books. “Those guidelines have opened my eyes,” she says of the chart. “I now have a plan to work towards and feel more positive.”

This newfound confidence has helped Chaturangi excel in school, especially in science—her favorite subject. Teachers have also noted a marked difference in her participation in extracurricular activities. She often writes poems about her family and participates in school debates.

Chaturangi’s parents attribute much of their daughter’s success to her social mobilizer. “I am so thankful for the great service she is doing for my daughter,” says Chaturangi’s mother. “She coaches her through all the skills needed for a girl in this part of the country and always believes in my daughter.”

“I want to be a good doctor,” Chaturangi says with confidence. “I want to serve the deserving people in the villages who are just like me.”

Learn more about Room to Read's work in Sri Lanka.

Students in Sri Lanka Make Headway by Taking Literacy Outside the Classroom

“When I was assigned to facilitate the pilot literacy programs in Wilgamuwa, I was little uneasy,” says Uppal Nandasiri, a senior teacher who has joined Room to Read’s Reading and Writing Instruction program in Sri Lanka as a field facilitator. “Literacy is a complex issue.”

When the program began, says Mr. Nandasiri, “less than 50 percent of children passed their O levels and about 22 percent failed in Sinhalese, which is their mother tongue.”

Reading and Writing Instruction in Sri Lanka began with a pilot group of 21 schools in Wilgamuwa. “The program made children think and use their imaginations,” says Mr. Nandasiri. “The previous curriculum was monotonous for young children who naturally have a short attention span.”

A short distance away, a group of primary school children sit very animatedly under the shade of a tree with their teacher, engrossed in the current lesson. One girl hops around like a rabbit using her fingers as ears. Another boy is down on all fours, roaring loudly. The rest of the class and the teacher split into laughter.

“We are acting out a lesson and each child is playing the part of an animal,” says the teacher, Sanjivini Jayathunga. With a giggle, eight-year-old Indica shares her part: “I am a puppy because I love dogs.” Her laughter, she says, was prompted by her “scene partner”, Raja, who forgot he was supposed to be a bear, roaring like a lion instead.

Sanjivini has been teaching for five years now and says the new methodology our program has taught her is much more engaging. “This is definitely is an easier way to get your students to learn and respond to the lesson.”

And it’s not just fun that makes the program worthwhile, she says. “Before we started this program, many of my students read with great difficulty...now almost every child here is an independent reader.” As if to prove her point, the teacher invites our team to call on any student in the class and have him or her read a passage. Sarath, an eager student whose hand went up immediately, does the honors.

He starts reading from a book called ‘Kuru Kuraga’ (Rumbling Tummy) his little finger tracing each word slowly.  The class is all ears and the teacher’s smile reflects her pride. As the story draws to a close, Sarath shares his view of the story’s moral, proving that his comprehension skills are on par with his reading.

“Standard school curriculums are usually a ‘one-fit-for-all’ module, and don’t take into consideration the difference in rural and urban schools” explains Mr. Nandasiri. “But this module is tuned to the needs of the children, and is supported by the storybooks, teaching aids and workbooks that are provided.”

Indica’s mother Sita, who has come to collect her from school, couldn’t agree more. “I am proud of Indica’s reading skills,” she says. “She is enjoying school like never before and I am very happy that the school is using methods that the children seem to enjoy.”

Learn more about our work in Sri Lanka.

A Record of Success for One Budding Librarian in Sri Lanka

Nine-year-old Dilshi loves the library at Hedunuwewa Primary School. Ever since Room to Read launched our School Library program there three years ago, she has been a regular, having read more than 240 of its 2,600 books.

At home, the books Dilshi read allowed her to explore new ideas and places, which made her think: with school so far away, there were others in her community that could not experience such joy.

This realization, coupled with her zealous love of reading, inspired Dilshi to create her own small library at home, and she immediately got started building her inventory.

Armed with a detailed checkout log and classification system, Dilshi runs her home library with the utmost efficiency. “I checked out 11 books to my friends and family during the school vacation last December,” she says, confirming the number with a glance at her register.

“Dilshi is my good friend," says Shachini, another fifth-grader from the school. "I went to see her home library and thought it was very beautiful.”

As word of Dilshi’s home library spread, she gained more and more patrons from the surrounding area—a fact, says her librarian, that is particularly important given the district’s remote, rural setting.

“Before Room to Read and Dilshi’s library,” says the librarian, “we had to take the primary school students to another school if we wanted them to see a library full of books.”

Our team in Sri Lanka, upon seeing the effects of Dilshi’s project, awarded her with a special literacy certificate recognizing the quality of her home library.

“I’m most impressed with the records she keeps,” says the principal of her school. It’s clear that the home library project is helping Dilshi develop more than just her literacy skills.

Learn more about our School Libraries and our work in Sri Lanka.

Six Short Weeks: Room to Read’s First Ever (Mini) Film Festival!

Over the past year, documentary filmmakers James Connolly and Rachelle Escaravage visited Room to Read projects throughout Asia. They met the children and communities that are benefitting from our programs, and recorded their stories on film.

Now those stories are the subject of six mini-documentaries, each focusing on one aspect of Room to Read’s work promoting literacy and gender equality in education. Over the next six weeks, we’ll be releasing those videos one at a time—providing you with a closer look at our programs than ever before.

The videos will take you to India, Laos, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, inside the libraries, homes, classrooms and communities of the children we serve. So grab some popcorn, press play and enjoy the show!

 Watch the videos on our website.

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.

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.