More than 250 million children around the world won’t learn to read despite attending school.
UNESCO 2019
Without access to culturally relevant, age appropriate books in a language that they understand, these children face a lifetime of illiteracy and its consequences, including discrimination, inequality, poor health and low opportunity. These children are often trapped in a multi-generational cycle of poverty without the ability to take action. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
If we could help every child currently enrolled at school in a low-literacy country to read, we could lift an estimated 171 million people out of poverty. (UNESCO, 2014). In turn, global poverty would reduce by 12%, and individual earning capacity would increase by 10%. And that’s just the beginning.