Room to Read is a global organization transforming the lives of millions of children in low-income communities by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children®, their innovative model focuses on deep, systemic transformation within schools during the two most critical time periods in a child’s schooling: early primary school for literacy acquisition and secondary school for girls’ education.

Room to Read works in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations, and governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and to ensure girls can complete secondary school with the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions. By focusing on the quality of education provided within the communities and ensuring these outcomes are measured, they have created a model that can be replicated, localized and sustained by local governments.

Room to Read has benefited 16.8 million children across over 37,000 communities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Grenada, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam, and Zambia.

Learn more about their work at www.roomtoread.org.