Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Promoting Literacy Initiatives Abroad Through Rotary Partnerships, Carol Walker Jordan

The Southeastern Librarian

In the Spring of 2005, on a trip to Atlanta, an article in the US Airways Magazine, August 2005, p. 75, caught my attention, "Universal Literacy: And How Room to Read Contributes To That Goal," by Michael Ybarra. Michael described how John Wood in 1998 quit his job as a marketing director at Microsoft to go trekking in Nepal. Invited by a local teacher to visit a classroom of a village school at Bahundanda, Wood described the conditions to be appalling--80 kids in one grade with 20 books described as backpacker castoffs-for example. Danielle Steel and Lonely Planet's guide to …