Sanjana Khoobchandani - Room to Read

hi everyone good evening I'm Sanjana with room to read we are so thrilled and honored to have been chosen as a community beneficiary for each Denver this year seeing the the excitement on the faces of those kids and hearing about all the interesting and fun creative ways the conference is supporting room to read is so so appreciated by our teams around the world so wanted to give a big thanks to John and for the conference organizers for allowing room to read to be here to share a little bit more about our story so for those of who those of you who don't know trees mission is simple we want to end illiteracy and gender inequality in education and we're celebrating our 20th anniversary this year which is really exciting and in the last thank you and in the last 20 years we've impacted more than 18 million children across 16 countries spanning Asia Africa Latin America and the Middle East and what ties children in those distance parts of the world is no different from us whether you grew up in you know near the Rocky Mountains in Colorado or near the Himalayas in Nepal we're room to read first started our life path is impacted by the education that we receive even the most basic education is what allows for the foundation for all future learning if we think about it the skills and talent that's on showcase this weekend would not have been possible without basic literacy skills I was chatting with John earlier this week and I think he summed it up best he said literacy is your economic engine without it how can you function in an Information Age and so I think that really sums it up but the challenge is there are still 700 million people around the world who are illiterate two-thirds of which are women that's where room to read comes in we are working to make sure that all children around the world can learn to read and write and our groundbreaking program is like no other we go in and establish libraries coach teachers we publish and distribute local language culturally relevant children's books so that kids are able to see things that they can relate to and they can build the culture of reading what's very exciting is we're now on the path to help spread our knowledge through the power of Education and the power of technology so we have launched what we're calling literacy cloud an open source platform for us to be able to share all of our local language children books and the content around professional development and teacher training with schools and teachers around the world so that in an instant a child in a remote village in Indonesia is able to instantly read a book that they can relate to and their imaginations can run wild we also have a program specifically around girls education and that's because we know that when girls reach secondary school level they are high much more highly likely to drop out due to cultural norms or other challenges within their community so we provide a holistic program for these girls we go in we support them in secondary school we work with their families we work with their communities and we pair them with a mentor who we call a social mobilizer who works with them on an ongoing basis and teaches them key life skills from self-confidence to communication skills all the way through to financial literacy so the girls are graduating secondary school with the skills they need to negotiate their key life decisions and it's so amazing to see over 80 of the girls in our program graduate to go on to pursue tertiary education or employment within one year of graduating that's virtually unheard of in the countries where we work and I'd like to end my slot today by sharing a story of a girl in our girls education program I'd like to introduce you to shovin um Shabnam grew up in a rural village in rajasthan india a village in which girls simply did not go to school they were expected to do household chores and work in the farmlands and care for elderly family members but they were not to go to school and that's when room to read came in we worked with the community leaders worked with the families and communities to let them understand the importance of educating girls and eventually we were able to enroll the first class of girls into school which included Shabnam [Applause] thank you unfortunately it was not all smooth sailing from there the cultural challenges still persisted relatives and neighbors were still challenging and often questioning her family because according to them Shabnam attending school with boys was against their religious beliefs but you know that was a challenge that we have seen often what was especially worrisome was that she was also not getting support from her father and her brothers but eventually room to read and her mother had her back and were able to work really closely with the community work really closely with a fan that family to understand why it's important that both boys and girls get educated so Shabnam worked really hard and I am pleased to share that she's currently in university she's studying electronics and she wants to become an engineer so it's very exciting and she is an inspiration to girls throughout her village and what's very touching is a recent quote from her father which I'm sharing with you now I'm delighted my daughter will soon become an engineer I'm an illiterate person who is a nobody in this village a huge transformation has taken place in our village inspired by my daughter hundreds of girls are going to school [Applause] so with that I just like to thank you all again for allowing me to be up here and share a little bit about room to read thank you for supporting room to read through the East End for conference and you really are changing the next generation of Future Leaders so thank you so much [Music]