Personal Experience: The Co-Founder of Room to Read

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Hi, my name is Mary Doe , and I am a co-founder of Room to Read.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I have always loved to read. In fact, Dr. Seuss’s children’s books were my favourite and I still keep them in my shelves today. Reading filled my imagination and gave me inspiration since childhood that still impacts me today.

I can only think of a few things that are more powerful than a book.

Though many of the people around us enjoy the luxury of having access to libraries and books everyday, that is not the case for the vast majority of people around the world.

Please consider the following statistics:

759 million people cannot read or write

98% live in the developing world

2/3 are girls and women

This is the very reality that is describing our world right now.

Illiteracy impacts very significant groups of populations in the world today.

That is not going to change; the cycle of poverty is going to continue, if we don’t do something about the education of all of those individuals who suffer from illiteracy.

That is why I am here today, to share about my passion for providing education for these people along with my fellow co-founder and friend, John Wood here.

So how did I discover this idea? Let me take you back to the mid 1990s.

I was working at Goldman Sachs, a company with investment banking. And I quit Goldman and joined Unilever in Vietnam. Back then, Vietnam had just opened up to foreign investment, and it was very exciting for me.

I had a great 3 years living there and helping my company grow in business. However, during those 3 years, it has made me realize something. Education is the absolute key to pulling yourself out of poverty.

So I joined a community service t...

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...h school. She said, “Without Room to Read, she’d have had to drop out and work in a factory.”

Our main ways of spreading our message is through Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, 3 of the most popular social medias in the world right now.

We have been able to provide higher education opportunities for children, which will empower them to make great life decisions and help them make their dreams become reality.

We have the power to eradicate illiteracy, and it starts from each of you.

It is my dream to have all the children to be able to turn their dreams into reality despite their birthplace and their circumstances.

Help make the world a better place by providing more children with a higher level of education. I would like to conclude this by leaving you a quote. As blablaba said, “the key to developing solutions is an educated population.”

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