‘Room to Read’ makes a sea change

by Shanika SRIYANANDA

She was nine but couldn’t read or write. Without dropping out of school, the ‘illiterate’ girl, Samanthi, came to school daily just to sing and dance. Not only Samanthi but also many children of her age couldn’t read or write but attended school daily. Coming to school was not easy for them. Drowned in extreme poverty, they walked miles and miles barefooted through thick jungles avoiding deadly attacks by wild elephants.

Educational facilities for the majority of children in Wilgamuwa, a village in the Matale district and a 11-hour journey from Colombo, is still a distant dream. No additional income, their fathers, being farmers and labourers who struggle to eke out a living, have relegated everything to ‘karma’.

Covering 22 schools in Wilgamuwa, the Room to Read Sri Lanka (RRSL) reached to help these children deprived of their right to education due to poverty.

Reading was a novel experience and books were so precious to them. With the help of the Ministry of Education the RRSL commenced a pilot project to improve literacy among these children. Based on their financial situation and capacity to read and write, the children were carefully screened in the one year course in literacy.

Samanthi and over 612 children from grade two to five were selected for the course. They could not read or write at all and scored zero for the language test. They were given lots of reading materials and the trained teachers introduced new methodologies in reading. The RRSL started its campaign at Wilgamuwa.

Believe it or not it took only two-months for Samanthi and her friends to learn to read books.

The most exciting event is that now they have a ‘small room’ in their 8x8 house to keep their books. That is their ‘Room to read’. They not only read but also share the books with neighbours and even with their parents who were deprived of reading children’s books. Each child now has 25 books including story books in Sinhala and English and English primary books.

“These children have transformed themselves a lot. They speak well; wear clean clothes and there is a behavioral change too”, said Zonal Education Director M.H.B Mahagedara.

The RRSL is not only inculcating the habit of reading in small children but they also teach them good habits. “We provide them with school uniforms, shoes and books to continue their education”, said the RRSL Country Director Glenfrey De Mel.

The RRSL is a branch of the Room to Read, the world renowned organization that plans to eradicate poverty through education. Room to Read is a story of a young man who turned his dream into a reality.

His story is interesting. Once upon a time, a white young man, who was the ‘second in command’ of the Bill Gates Microsoft in China, wanted to ‘get lost’ in a tranquil place in order to get out of the asphalt jungles of the city. He selected the Annpurana circuit in the Himalayas. He wanted a change in life but did not know how and when to get it. Carrying only a backpack, he set off on a 18-day trekking through the green forests of the Himalayas. Innocent smiling faces greeted him everywhere. On the second day of his journey, he happened to be in a rural school where his fate took a different turn.

That happened exactly 11 years ago when he saw the empty room with the name board ‘Library’. He was surprised to see a few books locked up in a cupboard. There were no desks, chairs or shelves. The few books - Danielle Street romance, an Umberto Ecc, Lonely Planet and a copy of Finnegans Wake - were precious to teachers.

“If we give the books to children they will damage them”, the headmaster told the visitor humbly.

Those books reminded him of his pre-school days when he sat on the lap of his mother, grandmother or the sister to read ‘Green eggs and ham’ and how he cycled to the Athens library to borrow more books when he was a just a 10-years-old boy.

“ Perhaps, Sir, you will someday come back with books”. The headmaster’s parting words changed him.

The few words reverberated in his ears. While travelling, he dreamt a dream. Back in Katmandu, he stopped at a cyber cafe to kick off his very first ‘assignment’. He e-mailed his friends around the world asking for BOOKs. It was the birth of his campaign `Books for Nepal - Please Help” tagged to his on-line address. He requested all to send the books to his parents in Colorado.

One by one the books started coming making his dream a reality. His dad parked his car outside to make room for the books, in his garage. At last, he received over 3,000 books within a month. Still the books were coming and after a year’s time, he visited Nepal with his father and the books. Six donkeys were rented out to transport the books to schools. He distributed them among 10 libraries and children who had never touched a book before started turning the pages carefully and enjoying the fresh smell of the new books. They started reading `Clifford the big dog’, `Marry Had a Little Lamb’, `Math in Action’ and many other books.

His mission never ended. When his research on literacy revealed that there were over 200 million children who did not attend school in the developing world and over hundreds of millions do not have access to books and libraries - he realized that the donation he made was just a drop in the ocean. He realized that his lucrative job at the Microsoft was not his forte. He dropped his perks and quit his job for a cause as he knew that the children of far away villages are waiting for him to bring books. Determined to walk that extra mile, the young man embarked on a unique mission.

This is the story of our times as to how the ‘Room to Read’ was born and how the young man - John Wood - put his love for reading, passion and energy to make thousands of children in poor villages read books.

“Room to Read works hard to give opportunities for bring the gift of education to some of the remotest and resource-deprived parts of the world. Whether it be the hills of Sri Lanka, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam or the deserts of India our goal is to make sure that every child in the world has access to books and libraries and trained librarians”, said Wood who tries to break the vicious cycle of poverty through education and spreads his wings in Sri Lanka after the devastating tsunami.

Wood is reaping his harvest. Over 3.1 million children who do not have money to buy books in Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, South Africa and Zambia read books today. He is reaching his target - to give access to books for over 5 million children by 2010.

“The first school project of the Room to Read Sri Lanka started in the Karaitivu, a coastal village devastated by tsunami lying 45 km south of Batticaloa. From there the Room to Read Sri Lanka has constructed 655 school libraries, 1682 pre-schools and 22 primary schools and offered 1,200 long term scholarships for girl children, published 47 bilingual story books for children which are written by the children themselves who took part in our workshops to brush up children’s writing skills”, said De Mel. He said that Room to Read Sri Lanka wanted over 1 million Sri Lankan children with the help of their parents, communities, and schools to have access to educational opportunities by 2010. “ We now have an added responsibility as a nation and also as a non-profit organization to provide educational opportunities for the children battered by the war”.

John Wood with Sri Lankan children

De Mel who was attracted by the vision and mission of the Room to Read joined the organization to provide reading facilities for the marginalized children in very remote areas in Sri Lanka. Putting all their energies to promote reading to have a change in their lives through education, everyone of the Sri Lankan staff of the Room to Read has a bitter past where they struggled to have a good education in their childhood. Like Wood, they too believe that books brought them up and reading helped them to break the vicious cycle of poverty. “ We are the products of the free education of policy. And we do not want other children to suffer the same fate. We always work hand in hand with the Government to help educate children.

Education is the only gateway to lead a successful life”, he said.

The RRSL has given bicycles to over 350 schoolchildren from grade six to eight. “ This has helped to improve their schooling. They used to come to school very early and go late to avoid wild elephants.

Walking through jungle patches and taking different routes to avoid wild elephants is not easy. That was a very tiring task for the small children. Now they pedal to school avoiding the risks”, De Mel said.

According to him, Room to Read Sri Lanka is to establish 50 reading corners to promote reading among children in the relief camps and plans to donate over 50,000 books among 600 schools in Batticaloa and Ampara districts.

Wood, who wrote “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World” - the award winning best seller, met Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka and top government ministers including Presidential Advisor, Basil Rajapaksa last week to leave a `Room for Reading’ for the children in the North who only saw the deadly war.

“Kindness in words creates confidence.

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.

Kindness in giving creates love. - Lao-tzu

Wood is happy that he has put a smile on the innocent faces of children around the world.

But there is more to be done to make our own children like Samanthi or Radha who are trying to read and write.

Let’s change their lives through books.