Room to Read

Room to Read

John Wood | MySpace Video

Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations. Through the opportunities that only education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.

Brief History

John Wood, founder and executive chairman, launched Room to Read after a trek through Nepal where he visited several local schools. He was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers, but also saddened by the shocking lack of resources. Driven to help, John quit his senior executive position with Microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their educational challenges.

In founding Room to Read, John wove proven corporate business practices with his inspiring vision to provide educational access and opportunity to 10 million children in the developing world. His novel approach to non-profit management calls for:

• Scalable, measured, sustainable results
• Low-overhead, allowing maximum investment in educational infrastructure
• Challenge grants fostering community ownership and sustainability
• Strong local staff and partnerships creating culturally relevant programs

In 2000, Room to Read began working with rural communities in Nepal to build schools and establish libraries. The organization's geographic reach expanded rapidly as significant needs and opportunities were identified in Vietnam (2001), Cambodia (2002) and India (2003). The Asian Tsunami in 2004 provided a catalyst for entry into Sri Lanka followed shortly by Laos. We expanded to our second continent by launching Room to Read in South Africa in 2006, and then Zambia in 2007. In 2008, we began operations in Bangladesh.

http://www.roomtoread.org/

Twiturm.com - FREEWAY, HOLLYWOOD, & JACK FROST - GOING PLACES PROD. BY B. MOON

Twiturm.com - FREEWAY, HOLLYWOOD, & JACK FROST - GOING PLACES PROD. BY B. MOON

Just A Thought #2

Wise beneficiaries of the very gracious stimulus package will follow-up with fiscally responsible business practices.

If there ever was an incentive to do so, we need only to look at the last 5 - 8 years of over-spending, under-regulating, and plain silly business practices from a myriad of industries within the economy.

The plan appears to be the result of thorough and meticulous crafting and aims to provide the most help to the most needy recipients (for example, working families, retailers, and manufacturers), as well as assist even the least responsible groups (i.e., now-struggling homebuilders, financial institutions, and the Wall Street).

And that, in my opinion, is more than fair; indeed, gracious.

So, the oneness now is on individual families, business-owners, corporations, and organizations alike, to make the best of this opportunity and nurture our economy back to good health.

I'm confident that we can do it. "Yes we can."

Ya'Allah (Let's go)!

This "Just A Thought" is based on information from the article published by US News & World Report at the link below:

http://news.usnews.com/dynamic/stories/S/STIMULUS_TAXES?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Just A Thought # 1

I read or heard somewhere today that most people are hesitant to buy products or services that require learning new operations, programs, etc.

I considered this in light of all the emerging communications and media technology and concluded that, if the former is true, there should be a simultaneous push for media literacy in a general sense, if the new products or services can be successfully marketed and sold, which is the bottom line.