It’s hard to find a kid in the United States who doesn’t take school for granted. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I actually wanted to go to school in the morning, yet I had classrooms with computers, books, great teachers and more. In the developing world schools barely have any books or even decent structures to teach lessons in, yet the students are filled with enthusiasm. Room to Read is a San Francisco, CA based non-profit that “seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.” It all started in Nepal when a Microsoft executive named John Wood who was traveling in Nepal and invited into a school in a small village. He was alarmed by how little they had to work with, so he quit his job and decided to build “a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges.”

Knowledge Is Power

While Room to Read started in Nepal, they’ve since expanded to Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Africa, and Zambia while also expanding their program offerings. These include four primary programs: Reading Rooms, Local Language Publishing, School Rooms, and Girls’ Education. While the basics of education are pretty simple, Room to Read is constantly struggling with the nuances of tailoring their program efforts to the communities that they’re working in. The best way to get a feel for the entirety of what Room to Read is doing is to take a look at their latest annual report. One of the most amazing facts in the report is that they’ve paved the way for four million children in nine countries to get access to schools and libraries (and that number appears to be updated to 5.1 million on their website). If Room to Read sounds like an organization that you could be a part of, take a look at their Jobs page. They have a number of positions that seem suitable for new or recent grads including East Coast Development Assistant – Individual & Family Foundations (New York) and possibly Communications/Marketing Associate. There are also positions abroad including Southern Africa Literary Specialist, Development Assistant (Tokyo), Schoolroom Program Associate (Laos), and Literacy Consultant (Vietnam). There are some really interesting opportunities here, though the requirements to do go a bit beyond typical entry level opportunities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• RoomToRead.org
• Jobs at Room to Read
• About Room to Read
• Room to Read’s Programs
• Leadership at Room to Read
• Room to Read News

Did you like going to school?

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