Fight Poverty with Literacy

World Map of Literacy via Wikipedia

Reading is the gateway to knowledge. It empowers people. It opens up the world.

It is a sad reality that one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women; 72.1 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.

In Cameroon, Wendy Lee, a young Peace Corp volunteer is working to change this by establishing 30 bilingual libraries in schools and community centres.

Its a huge project that will have a huge impact. But not without your help!

Please donate to help send a 40-foot container of 22,000 English books to Cameroon for this project. Your donation will help end poverty by giving the gift of literacy to kids in Cameroon!

Related articles by Zemanta

• On September 8th Kids Are Not the Only Ones Going Back to School (newswire.ca)
• Moses Nji Fonkwa : Cameroon (kiva.org)
• Challenging Inheritance Traditions-Village Diary (africaunchained.blogspot.com)

Donate Books for Free with Everywun

Everywun offers you a way to donate books to needy kids in Africa at absolutely no charge to you. Its easy, fun - and a great way for even the most cash strapped among us to make a difference.

Everywun works with Books for Africa. An organisation that collects, sorts, ships and distributes books to childen in Africa. They are the world’s largest shipper of donated books to the African continent. Since 1988, Books For Africa has shipped over 20 million high-quality text and library books to 45 African countries. Millions more are needed.

Click on the badge above and join Everywun to help Books For Africa to send even more books to children in Africa who are hungry to read, hungry to learn.

You can also donate directly to Books for Africa here.

Duffy Books in Homes

Image via Wikipedia

If you have an interest in NZ Literature (and movies) than you will more than likely have heard of Alan Duff. He's the author of Once Were Warriors (among other works). He set up the Alan Duff Charitable Foundation after a visit to Camberley School in Hastings, New Zealand in 1992. He found that the majority of those children came from bookless homes and showed little, if any, interest in reading.

The idea behind Duffy Books in Homes is to inspire a love of books and reading in children so that they grow into adults who inspire a love of reading.

The philosophy behind the programme is simple - to break the cycle of 'booklessness'. Kids who can't read become adults who can't communicate and that's a serious disadvantage in a world that operates on the written word.

The Books in Homes programme was officially launched in 1995 with 80 schools, 16,000 students and 14 sponsors, and has grown to encompass 558 schools, over 100,000 students and 182 sponsors in 2009. Its success has inspired offshoot programmes in the Pacific Islands, Australia and the USA.

Duffy kids are given 5 books a year, which they choose themselves from the Books in Homes catalogue. It costs around NZ$50 to provide a Duffy kid with all the services that the Books in Homes programme provides. You can donate here - your support of this great literacy project makes all the difference!

Books for Kids

The Literacy Site works with First Book and Room to Read to make books available to children around the world. With the generous support of their sponsors, each click provides 1% of a book.

Kids LOVE books. Fostering a love of reading early on stands them in good stead for the future - and literacy is key in breaking the poverty cycle.

So visit The Literacy Site every day and click to donate books to kids!

Room to Read

"Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, is essential to development and health, and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship "

- Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General

Its International Literacy Day on September 8th. So between now and then I'll be highlighting efforts to improve literacy and education around the world.

Why is literacy so important? In a letter to G-8 leaders, Mary Robinson, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mohammad Yunus wrote: "Without skills such as literacy, numeracy and problem-solving, millions of children and adults are trapped in poverty. Education is the key to unlocking inter-generational deprivation as it offers the knowledge people need to live healthy, happy lives."

First up is Room to Read. Room to Read is dedicated to promoting and enabling global education. Founded in 2000, the organisation is based on the belief that education is crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty in the developing world. Since then, the organization has supported over three million children by providing better access to higher-quality educational opportunities. Room to Read has established more than 700 schools and over 7,000 bilingual libraries with five million books, and continues to support the education of nearly 7,000 girls. Room to Read is providing opportunities that change children's lives and communities throughout Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zambia. By 2010, Room to Read hopes to improve literacy for five million children by establishing over 10,000 libraries and distributing nearly nine million children's books.

Find out how YOU can get involved and support Room to Read today!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Desmond Tutu asks G8 leaders to get world's children into school (guardian.co.uk)
• Signature For Good (takepart.com)