Changing the World One Book at a Time: The Story Behind Room to Read

Here’s a story you don’t hear too often: Microsoft millionaire visits a school in Nepal and decides to abandon his job and life of luxury to bring back books for kids.

That’s John Wood’s story. The school he visited in Nepal had 75 to 80 kids packed into one small room with dirt floors, according to Oprah.com’s summary of the “I Walked Away from Millions” show about Wood. Their library had only twenty books, many of which were not suitable for children.

This injustice disturbed Wood, and he promised to do something about it. Wood founded Room to Read, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading child literacy. Soon, he was so passionate about his cause that he started shrugging off e-mails about Bill Gates in order to pursue child literacy, according to Oprah.com.

When he made his decision to leave Microsoft, Wood thought, “It's been a great eight years, but I'm making wealthy shareholders wealthier,” according to Oprah.com’s show summary. “Meanwhile, there are 800 million people in the developing world lacking basic literacy. . . . What kind of a man am I if I don't go face this challenge directly or devote my life to this?”

Wood wrote a book about his story, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children (HarperCollins), which Publishers Weekly gave a starred review. You can find it at your local bookstore or online.

According to Wood’s book web site, Room to Read has established more than 3,800 libraries, published 147 books in the local languages of the countries they work in, and provided more than 1.6 English language books and 1.4 million local language books. Read more about Wood’s accomplishments on www.leavingmiscrosoftbook.com.

For more information on Room to Read, check out www.roomtoread.org.

Technology at Its Best: Google Earth Revolutionizes Humanitarian Aid

Latest News on Myanmar and China Earthquake:

Myanmar's government will be mourning the devastating tragedy of Cyclone Nargis for three days, starting Tuesday. The UN Chief will visit Myanmar to increase effective aid on Thursday. There are an estimated 134,000 dead or missing in Myanmar, according to bloomberg.com. Read more here.

The most recent numbers indicate that 50,000 have died from the China earthquake. According to the Los Angeles Times, 6,898 schoolrooms collapsed within one province as a result of the earthquake. China is also mourning for three days, beginning today. Read more here.
TO HELP: Disaster relief organizations such as UNICEF, World Vision, and the CARE Network are working to aid those suffering from crises. Please check their web sites for the latest updates on caring for the China and Myanmar situations.


Technology at Its Best: Google Earth Revolutionizes Humanitarian Aid


If you’ve logged on to Google Earth (earth.google.com) and looked up your house, you know the program is surprisingly accurate, with individual cars and buildings made visible. And hey, that dot on the sidewalk could be you walking to school.

With the ability to zoom in on one’s own house and view photos of college campuses, Google Earth may be a source of amusement and interest, but this program also serves a greater purpose.

Many nonprofit organizations now use Google Earth to quickly locate refugee camps and provide aid. In dire emergencies, lack of communication and panic can make it almost impossible to find those in greatest need, so Google Earth is a necessary advantage for aid workers. In fact, after Hurricane Katrina, some used this technological tool for rescue operations, according to Frank Jordans’s April 2008 Associated Press report. Google Earth now offers its $400 enhanced program to humanitarian groups for free; the regular Google Earth program is free for everyone.

As if rescuing refugees wasn’t enough, Google Earth also helps groups like UNICEF, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the UN Refugee Agency change the way the world views humanitarian crises across the globe. A visit to a refugee camp on Google Earth, for example, places the viewer amidst the haunting realities of violence and poverty. Such up-close coverage closes the distance between well-off lives and genocides, conflicts, and other human rights issues igniting the world.

Without knowledge of these critical stories, the rampant fires of bloodbaths today will continue to burn. Just take a look at Rwanda, 1994, when the world had the opportunity to rescue so many innocents.

As one American TV reporter said in Hotel Rwanda—according to the “This Week” list of quotes in ABC News—“If people see this footage they’ll say, ‘Oh my god, that's horrible,’ and go on eating their dinners.”

In 1994, concern did not translate into action, and one million people died in a span of just 100 days, according to Explore Faith’s Hotel Rwanda web site coverage. Although some did respond, their efforts were not enough to save those one million people—deaths that could have been prevented if the entire world had rallied behind justice in Rwanda.

But thanks to today’s technology, donating to the suffering—and collectively extinguishing the flames of war, genocide, and poverty—is made easy on the Internet. Take a few seconds to input a credit card number and click a mouse; it’s this simplicity that empowers more and more people to donate. Not to mention Google Earth, which holds the unprecedented potential of bringing to light some of the unnoticed tragedies that seldom reach the TV screen.

But is technology enough to change apathetic attitudes? Like Rwanda in 1994 and slavery prior to the Civil War, the world may look back on the deaths in Darfur, Uganda, Colombia, and Chad, and wonder why its ancestors did nothing to diffuse these tragedies.

U2’s Bono spoke eloquently about the current generation at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., a transcript of which appeared on USAToday.com. “I truly believe that when the history books are written,” Bono said, “our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not to—to put the fire out in Africa.”

To view the refugee camps, download Google Earth and then download the UNHCR layer at http://www.unhcr.org/events/47f48dc92.html. Also check out the “World is Witness,” “Crisis in Darfur,” and “Mapping the Holocaust” Google Earth layers at http://www.ushmm.org/maps.