Feature

“The idea is to enhance education and provide every individual to exercise their full potential,” announced Mr. Zakir Hasan, the Country Director of Room to Read, at the launching event of the organization in Bangladesh, on January 31st.

With the presence of prominent figures, Rasheda K Chowdhury, Former Advisor to the Caretaker Government and Education Activist, Professor Abdullah Abu Sayed, Chief Executive Officer, Bishawo Shahitto Kendra, Professor AAMS Arefeen, Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University, Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, Economist and the Chairperson of SUJON, and Barbara Payne, Senior Education Advisor of DFID, this event welcomed and seized the energy required to better the educational structure of our country from the grassroot level.

The organization, from its inception in the year 2000, has established over 5,600 libraries in Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Africa, and Zambia. They have dedicated themselves to the community engagements, concerns and sustainability of the educational system. They work both through NGOs and directly, with schools as their prime partner, to promote reading, girl's education and schools in general. Using flexible models to suit each distinct culture, in the end it is need for the coming together of the entire community to boost learning beyond classroom syllabus. “Just a library is not enough, we need the entire community,” was one of the highlighted mottos of the event.

“Education shouldn't stop in the classroom doors, but there needs to be more focus on the children's needs,” mentioned Barbara Payne, “and we must plug into the existing or ongoing programs which work with education so that this is an enhancement program, where its strength is the unity of purpose.”

Professor Ahmad reminded us that the educational system, which had once thought the nation the relationship between men and books, has now been lost. “Even the Zamidars who may not have even loved reading had an enormous shelf of books in his home”, he noted. “With one drop of knowledge we can make a difference,” added Professor Sayed, “We come from Bengal, a history of talent and knowledge.” It is therefore the bringing back of the culture of reading that needs to be empowered.

Professor AAMS Arefeen provided us a bit of a background on John Woods, the man who, overworked back home, came for some quite peace on the mountains of Himalayan only to meet the harsh realities of the Nepalese children there. There were libraries, yes, even in the cracks of the mountains, but they were locked in the fear that someone would steal them. That has been the condition of the educational network in South Asia, and Room to Read hopes to break through those locks even in Bangladesh, its 9th country program.

In his memoir, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, John explains his journey away from the materialistic world, where he quits his job to start Room to Read. He mentions the irony where the importance of the copies of Windows sold is given more priority towards countries where millions of children can't even read. “A mind needs knowledge and meaning and I can only direct someone to a library for it, added Professor Arefeen.

Room to Read hopes to establish its success here as it did everywhere else but that also includes the strength in partnering and working together with the educational board both at the national and local level. Ms. Rasheda K Chowdhury added that the books that are handed to children must be looked into, must be children friendly. There is also the necessity of mainstreaming success stories so that it can be replicated, she emphasized.

In the end of it all it was the philosophy spoken by Polan Sharker, an elderly book reading activist from the grassroot level, that touched the audience, “never work for self worth only, help to improve others and the nation at times also.”