Every summer for years, Deborah has gone to the library in Kade, Ghana to read the few books available. This summer, she finally had access to thousands of books thanks to Worldreader´s Vacation Reading School. In June, Worldreader launched a reading program so that students like Deborah could access their e-readers during the school break. Student attendance was high: some students visited as many as 20 times in just 2 months. Jacqueline, one of our volunteer teachers, told us that the Vacation School offered her the first opportunity to teach reading skills. When books are plentiful, students and teachers simply fall in love with reading.
Literacy is a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Today´s statistics are disheartening: One in six adults are still not literate, and about two-thirds of them are women, according to UNESCO. Poor infrastructure and high cost of shipping paper books has meant that books never make it to large parts of the developing world. Until things change, they never will.
Today is International Literacy Day, a good time to reflect on the power of reading and how the world is changing. As David wrote recently: e-readers can work in the most remote parts of the world and give people access to millions of books. We believe that providing access to books can have a very profound effect, just as The NYT´s David Brooks says. Our goal is to help change the developing world so that students and families have new tools to improve their lives. Join us in making this change a reality.
