roomtoread/OurWorkVideo

1. “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

2. http://www.roomtoread.org/OurWorkVideo

3. When you educate a girl, everything changes. Literacy vs. Poverty If all children in low-income countries left school with basic reading skills, could be lifted out of poverty. Healthier families. A child born to a literate woman is to survive past age five.

4. Providing a girl with one extra year of education beyond the average boosts her future wages by 20%. Of the 793 million illiterate people in the world, two-thirds are female. Educated women earn more. • Significant inequalities still exist

5. John Wood – Upton High school have named Wood Hall • after him. • Microsoft executive, John Wood visited Nepal for a backpacking getaway. While hiking in the Himalayas, John met a Nepalese “Education Resource Officer” who invited him to visit a school in a neighbouring village. • At the school, he saw the harsh reality confronting not only this village, but millions of Nepalese children–a dilapidated schoolroom and a severe shortage of books. • John was stunned to discover that the few books the school had were so precious that they were kept under lock and key...to protect them from the children!

6. As John left the village, the headmaster made a simple request: "Perhaps, Sir, you will someday come back with books.“ John emailed friends asking for help collecting children's books, and within two months had collected over 3,000 books. The following year, John and his father, accompanied by a train of eight book-bearing donkeys, returned to the village in Nepal. Seeing the faces of the children with the books convinced John to leave the corporate world, in late 1999, John lefthis executive position with Microsoft and started Room to Read.

7. How can you help? Two years ago, Abby and Beth who are now in Year 12 won a national competition and represented our school at an international conference in Michigan, USA. Students had to come up with an idea to change the world and many Upton students & students across the UK voted for their idea. Abby & Beth’s winning idea was to organise a ‘Gig for Girls’ i.e. organising a concert to support the education of disadvantaged girls worldwide as educating girls is the most powerful and effective way to address global poverty. Abby and Beth met with a representative of “Room to Read” (John Wood’s organisation) whilst in America and decided to donate the proceeds from the Gig(s) to the charity.