Room to Read

“Form 990 review process room to read's form 990 undergoes a number of internal and external reviews prior to being filed with the irs. The return is reviewed by room to read's public accounting firm, grant thornton llp, and reviewed by room to read's accounting department, ceo, and cfo. Then copies of the form 990 are provided to the audit committee and to all board members for their review and approval. Any questions the audit committee and board members have are directed to room to read's controller.”

“Process for monitoring of conflict of interest policy our conflict of interest policy is included in room to read's employee handbook. Worldwide the employee handbook is distributed to new employees upon hire. In accordance with this policy, signed acknowledgements are maintained in individual employee files by human resources. Annually the management team and board sign conflict of interest statements and during the year any changes in conflict of interest are reported to the board. If a situation of conflict arise on any matter, the interested member/s abstain from voting on that matter.”

“Process for determining compensation of ceo and key employees the board has a human resources committee which includes at least two independent directors and the chief operating officer. The organization uses an independent advisory party to benchmark all salary ranges at least every 2 years. The human resources committee reviews and approves in general the organization's salary ranges. Separately, based on these benchmarks and on individual performance reviews, the human resources committee submits recommendations for top management salaries (including the ceo and cfo) to the board, which are reviewed and documented by the board as part of the annual budget discussion.”

“Documents available to the public the organization makes financial documents such as an annual audit, form 990, form 990-t, and annual report available to the public on the room to read website or upon request. All other governing documents are not available to the public via the organizational website but can be issued upon request if appropriate. The conflict of interest policy is shared and updated annually with the board of directors and key employees.”

“In order to be as transparent as possible on the operations of the organization, room to read (the organization") has elected to file form 990 on a consolidated basis to be consistent with its consolidated audited financial statements. The consolidated financial statements include accounts of the organization, one regional office and seven country offices registered under room to read, as well as accounts of room to read australia foundation, room to read australia limited, room to read canada, room to read (hong kong) limited, room to read india private company limited, room to read india trust, room to read global services private limited, room to read japan, room to read nepal, room to read netherlands, room to read (new zealand) charitable trust, room to read singapore limited, room to read south africa association, room to read-switzerland, room to read united kingdom limited, and room to read zambia limited in which the organization effectively has control and an economic interest. All intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated. Form 990, part iii, line 1, description of organization mission: room to read is creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality, through education. Room to read transforms the lives of millions of children through education, creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality.”

“The organization establishes school libraries and stocks them with local language books, english books, and original room to read children's books. Brightly colored furniture, puzzles and games foster a child-friendly environment and encourage a love of reading. 1,132 school libraries were established during 2021. To date we have completed a cumulative total of 30,751 school library projects. New languages across africa our team in africa has long been focused on creating materials in underrepresented languages in the children's publishing industry. In 2021, they continued producing materials in sepedi and isizulu in south africa and kiswahili in tanzania. They also began the creation of learning materials in four new languages: xitsonga and isindebele in south africa and luganda and ruyankore-rukiga in uganda. Scaling our work in cambodia in early 2021, our cambodia literacy team and the country's ministry of education worked together to create a national primary school library package. The national package is modeled on room to read's library approach. Also in 2021, room to read's cambodia team distributed home library packages to primary school students across the country. The packages included curated sets of storybooks and accompanying guidance for parents. This initiative resulted in the distribution of more than 1.5 million books to 95,000 students in grades 1-6. During a virtual event, the cambodian minister of education praised room to read's efforts to support children and families. Reading campaigns and digital learning initiatives in india to facilitate learning at home during the pandemic, our team in india launched a campaign, "india gets reading at home." through this initiative, room to read created a variety of innovative mobile libraries including libraries via camel cart, boats and bikes across nine different states to ensure that learning continued regardless of location. In addition, room to read participated in several state and national webinars on education and provided technical support for governmental digital learning initiatives and professional development for teachers. Laos national curriculum support our laos team has begun to implement an updated instructional model to support the national reading curriculums for grades 1 and 2. Under this updated model, the literacy program team focuses on cultivating principals' literacy expertise and coaching skills so that they are well equipped to directly support teachers with implementing the national curriculum. The team will also support principals to facilitate monthly teacher learning circles, where teachers come together in small groups to learn and practice new teaching techniques. Supporting burmese children in bangladesh over the past two years, our books have helped children cope with the impact of covid-19 by supporting young learners' social and emotional needs while developing their literacy skills. In bangladesh, our team selected 10 storybooks that touch on pandemic-related challenges and translated them into burmese for children in the rohingya refugee camps. Thirty more quality storybooks were translated into burmese and english so children in the camps could benefit from a variety of engaging content. Influencing national curriculum in tanzania our literacy team in tanzania led two workshops with the tanzania institute of education in preparation for the country's revision of the national literacy curriculum. The first workshop led participants through a collaborative process to determine the letter teaching order for government textbooks. The second crafted a tool that stakeholders will use to identify the gaps in current textbooks. Room to read then facilitated a four-day workshop to use the tool to review government books. Once new textbooks are completed, they will be distributed to more than 16,000 schools across the country. Partnering with the sunday times in sri lanka room to read sri lanka partnered with the sunday times, a leadi”

“Government engagement in tanzania in partnership with the tanzania institute for education (tie), room to read helped create national life skills education (lse) guidelines. Much of this new curriculum is based on room to read's lse framework, and, with the support of tie, will reach many more students beyond our direct program implementation. Also in tanzania, room to read signed an agreement with the chalinze district council in june 2021 to launch a new project centered on supporting girls through life skills and financial literacy. The two-year project will be carried out through july 2023 and will benefit more than 8,000 girls across the district. Gender equality curriculum for boys in cambodia we know that achieving gender equality is a pursuit that everyone, not just women and girls, must work toward together. We have, therefore, been working with promundo and gender and development for cambodia to develop and deliver a life skills curriculum for boys. The curriculum is specifically designed to help boys examine gender norms and stereotypes and is the result of extensive research and pilot assessments that our team in cambodia has carried out across the country in recent years. In 2021, our team provided training to teachers and other program facilitators so that the curriculum can be delivered at scale. Talking about menstrual health in india our india team conducted a week-long campaign to normalize the conversation around menstrual health and hygiene. Activities included documenting menstruation experiences across several generations and holding virtual discussions with gep participants and their families as well as prominent reproductive health experts. Radio programming in nepal our nepal team created and released more than 100 unique radio episodes to provide life skills lessons and answer questions from adolescent girls and their families on topics such as managing emotions, creating healthy relationships, delaying marriage, studying at home and setting goals. This content has enabled us to benefit girls who don't have access to tv and the internet during the pandemic. Video life skills lessons in vietnam the vietnam team introduced a series of life skills videos for girls in grades 7 and 8 that have kept them learning and connected with their teachers during the pandemic. The videos were made available via youtube and cover topics ranging from critical thinking to reproductive health. Girls would then watch the videos and then participate in virtual discussion groups managed by teachers. Evaluating distance learning methods to assess the impact of our adapted activities, our research, monitoring and evaluation (rm&e) team is partnering with oxford measured and fab inc. To conduct a study, starting with cambodia, india and nepal. The research, which began in 2021 and will continue through the first half of 2022, includes interviews with our gep participants and social mobilizers aimed at gauging how effective our adapted programming has been in meeting the unique needs presented by the global pandemic. 2021 covid-19 pandemic response by the numbers: i. Room to read programs broadcast via tv - 210 ii. Room to read programs broadcast via radio - 159 iii. Unique girls receiving individual remote mentoring- 31,322 iv. Girls receiving non-digital materials - 11,175 v. Remote individual mentoring sessions - 282,242”

“Strategic investment areas climate justice room to read's strategic plan includes a commitment to strengthening environmentally sustainable practices through our operations and programs. As an organization, we are implementing an impactful and sustainable strategy that will institutionalize environmentally friendly practices at room to read. Programatically, our girls' education program team has studied the strong relationship between girls' education and climate justice based on research by academics and practitioners. As a result, we are developing a two-year gender and climate justice curriculum that will help girls build adaptive capacity and become active leaders in climate action. In 2021, we completed the two-year curriculum and in 2022 we will focus on developing the accompanying professional development materials, as well as building out a monitoring and evaluation system before piloting the curriculum in several countries. With this program expansion and our climate change book series we are establishing room to read as a thought leader in children's climate education. Global leader in quality learning materials in our strategic plan, we committed to understanding what role room to read can play in our core programs within historically low-income communities. After a feasibility study in our literacy work, we have taken on a book publishing project in the united states. Similarly, for our girls' education and gender equality focus, we initiated a project in italy, which has one of the highest gender gaps in employment in europe. In addition, we are continuing to publish our stories in minority languages to provide all children with quality learning materials. The following includes some project details: united states to provide high-quality, diverse children's books to children in the u.s. Who have limited access to engaging reading materials, we began distributing 6,805 printed sets of our 10-book peace & equality book collection to more than 40,000 children across underserved communities in california's central valley and the san francisco bay area in 2021. In 2022, we will continue to distribute diverse books to children in underserved areas. Italy in italy, we are developing a content strategy to reach adolescent girls and share our life skills curriculum. This will include engaging with the existing learning framework, as well as creating graphic comics that can be designed to motivate girls to continue their education and plan a life of future employment. Publishing in more minority languages in 2021, our quality reading materials team worked with translators to publish our peace & equality book collection in jarai, an indigenous language of the montagnard jarai people, and a minority language in vietnam and cambodia. This is part of our overall goal of expanding storybook languages to be inclusive of minority cultures. Form 990, part v, line 2a: total employees room to read has 90 u.s. Employees that were issued a 2021 w-2 but have a total of 1,442 employees worldwide.”

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