Fighting Illiteracy ~ WorldReader

Image Courtesy of WorldReader ~ https://www.worldreader.org/about-us/mediaroom/photos/

This will be the 17th post I’ve done about WorldReader—if you put its name in the search bar up there, you’ll find this post and 16 others…

They sent me an email the other day with this exciting headline: Our Read To Kids Partnership Reaches 200,000!

from WorldReader:

“Two years ago, we asked ourselves a question: could we use mobile phones, local digital books, and local partnerships to get entire communities to read with their kids?

“Today, we’re incredibly proud to announce that over the course of our Read to Kids pilot program, co-created with Pearson, we’ve reached 200,000 families in and around Delhi, India with the life-changing power of reading.”

If you’re pressed for time and not able to take that last link, do, please, watch at least the first short video at the end of this post…

A bit more from WorldReader:

“Thanks to Pearson and to each of [our donors], we’re learning how to support parents to create a culture of reading in the home— a child’s first school. With what we learn, we hope to empower millions more families around the world, from their first days and throughout their lives. Each step gets us closer to realizing our shared vision that everyone can be a reader.”

You can read more about this extremely important program…

And:

“Read to Kids is now expanding to the Syrian crisis and aims to reach another 50,000 refugees and host families in Jordan.”

There are a number of ways you can Get Involved…

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Wiping Out Illiteracy

Last year I wrote about a major reading initiative in the post, Promoting Literacy by Putting It in World-Crisis-Solving Perspective. 

I recommend all readers, writers, and publishers absorb that post for one important reason:

“Illiteracy affects over 757 million people worldwide and has an impact on global development. Although it is a largely invisible issue, the repercussions of this can be seen in everyday struggles such as poverty, gender inequality, and access to basic civil rights.”

BTW, 757 million people is about 1 in 10 folks who can’t read…

So…

Apart from encouraging you to Donate, I’ll wrap this up with two videos from them:

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Read Some Strange Fantasies
Grab A Free Novel…
Visit The Story Bazaar

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Creating a Literate World

“Literacy is transformative: it increases earning potential, decreases inequality, improves health outcomes and breaks the cycle of poverty.”
~ UNESCO

Just in case you didn’t know, UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, based in Paris, France.

And, they organize World Book Day (held April 23 in some places…)

Amazon is jumping in to help three literacy organizations this year:

First Book, Room to Read, and Worldreader

I’ve never written about the first two; but, this makes the 10th post about Worldreader (to read them all, click here…)

I got an email today from Worldreader about a new program they’re kicking off on Sunday, April 23rd:

Digital Book Drive

If you take that last link you’ll find 6 e-books that you can donate for $1.00 each and have them sent directly to students in Ghana and Kenya…

 Oh! You can also decide to send multiple copies of each book to multiple students :-)

It looks like it might be only for folks in the U.S.A.; but, they do accept Dollars, Euros, and Pounds…

And, the books (as you’ll see if you take the last link) are stories that take place in the country the students are from…

Worldreader is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Barcelona, London and Accra.

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Sept. 8th ~ International Literacy Day

In fact, it’s the 50th Anniversary of International Literacy Day! 

Here’s some data…

“The world has changed since 1966 – but our determination to provide every woman and man with the skills, capacities and opportunities to become everything they wish, in dignity and respect, remains as firm as ever. Literacy is a foundation to build a more sustainable future for all.”
~~~  UNESCO Director-General   

World Literacy Foundation

International Literacy Association

And, here are 17 articles on literacy…

List of countries by literacy rate

Map of World Literacy

The 10 Most Literate Countries in the World

The 10 Countries with the Lowest Literacy Rates
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Why Are There Still So Many People Who Don’t Have Books to Read?

Many organizations and individuals work very hard to get books to those who have none… 

An organization I’ve written about before is WorldReader (here are the posts I’ve done about them…).

Here’s just a bit of explanation of what WorldReader does:

“Literacy is transformative

“It increases earning potential, decreases inequality, improves health outcomes and breaks the cycle of poverty. Books are necessary for the development of literacy skills yet millions of people still have limited access to books.

“We’re changing this.”

WorldReader does its work by supplying folks with e-readers stocked with books appropriate for their age and culture…

TechCrunch, had an article involving WorldReader called, Amazon Launches the Kindle Reading Fund to Expand Digital Reading Around the World.

The article indicates how broadly Amazon‘s initiative reaches…

Here’s an excerpt about their affiliation with WorldReader:

“The company says its new collaboration with Worldreader will see Amazon donating thousands of Kindle e-readers to developing nations. The two have worked together previously, however. For example, Amazon recently supported Worldreader’s LEAP 2.0 library partnership in Kenya, which reaches around 500,000 people by bringing digital reading to 61 libraries in the country.”

It’s been said there are one billion people on our planet with no access to books…

If you want to be inspired to do something about this, watch these two videos…

This one was done in association with Kindle:

This one is from WorldReader, directly:

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If you don’t see a way to comment (or, “reply”) after this post, try up there at the top right…
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For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com