Campaign Crusader - John Wood, Room to Read

CAMPAIGN CRUSADER – JOHN WOOD, ROOM TO READ

While trekking in the Himalayas in 2000, Microsoft executive John Wood visited a school. He was appalled to find that the library consisted of a cupboard with four adult books – in English and Italian. On an impulse, he wrote an email to 100 people in his contact list, asking them to send children’s books to his father’s home in the United States . One month later, his father asked him what he was supposed to do with the 3000 books sitting on his doorstep.

That was the moment that John decided to throw away his career with Microsoft to instead help children condemned to illiteracy because of lack of resources. Ten years on, the founder of Room To Read has delivered an extraordinary 7 million books, as well as building 1000 schools and 10,000 libraries.

John has also established a local language publishing program to counter the fact that 98 % of the estimated 1 billion people (including children) who are illiterate are in the developing world .

In Australia recently to open the Melbourne c hapter of Room to Read, John said that his aim was to reach 10 million kids. H e thought big , he said, because the problem is big.

“Anyone who has money has an education to thank,” he said. “If you drop off a bag of rice, in a week, they will need another bag of rice. If you educate – that goes on generation after generation.”

Delivering the books can be challenging. But Wood’s philosophy is to use whatever local resources are available , even if that means using the backs of yaks in the Nepalese Himalayas.

The foundation is also committed to hiring smart local people who can engage the local community.

•  759 million adults are illiterate; two-thirds of them female

•  More than 300 million children world-wide are not enrolled in school

•  Of the world’s 72 million primary school-aged children out of school, 96% live in developing countries

“As a person whose life was profoundly influenced by the libraries in my school and my home town, I cannot think of a happier set of numbers than these: over 4 million children visiting 10,000 libraries stocked with over 7 million books.”

John Wood, Room to Read blog

The Australian c hapter of Room T o Read was launched in February last year. It has raised nearly $2m in that time through two huge events and corporate donations.

As awareness grows, the volunteer base grows , as well as the number of committed co mpanies and foundations. Sydney , Melbourne and Brisbane are t hree of more than 45 chapters around the world. Other fundraising groups have been established in Canberra, Adelaide and Perth. “Everyone on the team here works pro bono. But it’s run like a business. It is very professional , ” says Jenny Orchard, Foundation Director, Room to Read, Australia.