a boy sits reading a books and smiling at the camera

Ending learning poverty with books

“Children need to learn to read so that they can read to learn” – The World Bank.

Most children living in poverty grow up in homes without any books and parents who cannot read themselves. Poor quality early education, or no primary education at all, contributes to low reading levels and illiteracy which persists into later life. This affects employment opportunities and life outcomes. In order to ensure a better, poverty free life we must address learning poverty – we must address reading.

Reading as a gateway to learning

“Reading is a gateway to all types of academic learning” – The World Bank.

Our mission is to provide a free, quality education to those children most in need but our children cannot learn without a solid foundation of reading and comprehension. And they cannot achieve this without books.

Our children need books: reading books, reference books, and textbooks – all are vital to their education. We need books to give children reading material to foster a love of reading and learning. We need enough textbooks for each child at our schools. We need to update our textbooks in line with each country’s government standards. Can you help us?

“Learning poverty, a metric introduced in 2019 by the World Bank and UNESCO Institute for statistics, shows that 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries were not able to read an age-appropriate text with comprehension by age 10.”

"Will every child be able to read by 2030?" World Bank