Nearly eight hundred million people in this world cannot read or write, most of them in developing countries. Two-thirds are women and girls.
John Wood who started the Room to Read campaign(运动), has opened 1,650 schools and 15,000 libraries in some of the world’s poorest communities(社区). He said that from the beginning, Room to Read’s goal was to reach 10 million children around the world in the poorest countries.
In 1998, on a three-week vacation journey in Nepal, Wood met a local headmaster who invited him to visit his school in a far mountain village. The experience changed Wood’s life.
“This headmaster had 450 students at the school, but he didn’t have any books,” Wood said.” He had a library that was empty.”
Wood promised to fill the library shelves and returned to the village year later with some of his friends with 3,000 books. And that was just the start. Later, Wood used some of his personal money to start Room to Read. He believes that world change begins with educated children. Today, the programme can be found in 10 countries across Asia and Africa.
Wood believes the key to the program’s success is local support .While Room to Read gives away money and provides books, communities offer land and parents help build the school. Agnes, a Room to Read teacher in Zambia who also runs the library, is proud to say the literacy at her school has improved. Room to Read’s biggest challenge is the huge need. Hundreds of communities have asked for literacy programmes. One way of Room to Read’s success is that it will achieve Wood’s goal of reaching 10 million kids by 2015, five years earlier than it is planned.
The purpose of the Room to Read campaign is to __________.
A.ask parents to read together with their children |
B.help poor children to learn to read and write |
C.tell more people the importance of reading |
D.help 10 million children to go to college |
When John Wood travelled in Nepal in 1998, he __________.
A.visited many local schools |
B.sent many books to local children |
C.started the Room to Read campaign |
D.met a man who changed his life |
The underlined part “the literacy” in the last paragraph refers to(指的是)__________.
A.the teaching conditions |
B.the teaching quality |
C.students’ ability to read and write |
D.the money teachers earn every month |
John Wood is a person that is ____________.
A.helpful and generous | B.honest and brave |
C.careless but active | D.strict but friendly |