new stats!

these numbers are amazing!

Construction of 442 schools
Establishment of 5,167 libraries
Published 226 new local language children’s titles representing 2,099,000 books
Donation of 2,240,976 English language children’s books
Establishment of 108 computer labs
Establishment of 47 language labs
Funding of 4,036 long-terms girls’ scholarships
Impacting 1,758,020 children’s lives!

for you boulderites! chapter member Val Hovland event

Sunday, March 2, 2008, 4-5:30pm
REI Boulder, 1789 28th St., Boulder, CO

What’s it like to survive a night in a cramped snow cave at 24,500 feet after your tent and belongings blow away in 80 mph winds? What’s it like for a girl to grow up in a village in Nepal with no school? And what do they have in common?
Join Boulderite Val Hovland for tales and slides from trekking and climbing in the Himalaya, her successful climb of 26,290 ft Shishapangma, and help support a new school in Nepal through her climb of Everest this spring.

Share in the memories of yak bells through the night, snow loudly falling, the sweetness of milk tea, ever-present Buddha eyes, the smell of diesel and kerosene, potatoes in every and any form, excitement of children in the upcoming village, swirling juniper smoke, and unforgettable high peaks and experiences on ice, rock, and snow.

Learn what it takes to prepare for the next big adventure—Everest, and support education by helping to fund a new school in Nepal through Room to Read!

Namaste.

P.S. If you cannot attend but would like to donate, please click here https://www.roomtoread.org/involvement/donate/us.php?source=Hovland08 (fill in "Hovland Everest School" in the Special Instructions box)

Paul Polak Discusses His New Book Out of Poverty

Colorado's own Paul Polak recently published a book titled Out of
Poverty and will be speaking at an event in Denver this Thursday.
Details about the event are below:

Paul Polak Discusses His New Book Out of Poverty
Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:30 PM
Tattered Cover — LoDo Store
1628 16th Street at Wynkoop
Denver, CO

For anyone who's not familiar with Paul Polak's work, he started
Lakewood, Colorado-based International Development Enterprises
(IDE)about 25 years ago, which helps the extreme poor (<$1/day) to
increase their incomes through ultra-affordable agricultural
technology. Of the 1.1 billion people who struggle to survive on less
than $1/day, approximately 800 million make their living from farming.
In one example, Nepalese farmer Krishna Bahadur Thapa increased his
income from less than $1/day to $4,800 per year. One of the first
things farmers do when they raise their incomes is to send their
children to school. It's an inspiring example of helping people to
lift themselves out of poverty sustainably.

I hope to see many of you there!

hmmm.....

i don't really have any event updating to do, especially since we pushed it back, but i was going to try to find some literacy (or illiteratcy really) stats and i'm having a hard time finding updated ones. i'm not very good at googling i guess.

meeting update

last night's meeting went really well. we were lucky enough to be able to use susie's Live Urban Real Estate office. it's so pretty in there! we had two new people and there's also one more new person who wasn't able to make it but sounds eager to help so that would put us at 8! that's a pretty good sized core committee i think.

we came up with 6 main committees that we need and then we went around and everyone stated which they'd like to be on.
Publicity/PR- Paula
Fashion Show- Aimee
Artists- Polly
Event Planning (this will need to be a bigger committee!)- Estefania, Paula and Kate
Sponsorships- Susie

also we made a pretty major decision in that we moved the date. i think everyone was really stressed about the may 17th date being too close since we are really just getting started so we have a new (tentative date) of September 20th. estefania is going to check with the Oriental Theater to see if they are available.
i sort of have mixed feelings about moving it because that actually puts it at almost exactly a year from when i originally wanted to have it which makes it feel like a personal failure almost, to keep pushing it back. however, i know that to have it be a successful event we can't try to cram it in just to get it done. this way we may be able to work with CSU more also.

after the meeting paula and i went to swimclub 32 to have a drink and discuss. it's really pretty in there!

local language publishing

this is the part that i think is the coolest about how Room to Read does their Local Language Publishing program:

The books are created entirely within the countries in which we work: we work with local writers and illustrators to develop new culturally relevant children's books. Many of these stories are adapted from local folktales; other stories are sourced from various writing competitions and writers' workshops that are sponsored and held by Room to Read. The competitions and workshops are designed to promote a culture of writing, not just reading, and to source and develop new creative talent. As a result, they are most appropriate within a local context, which can sometimes be very different than a children's book written for an American/European audience.
All of our local language books are printed within the respective countries in order to promote the local economy and create jobs.

here are some pictures of the book covers....







there's another one that i really like called Balloon Boy. it's about this boy who eats too many cookies and turns into a balloon! it's really cute.

sick day part 2

-we still haven't seen the venue and that is really starting to stress me out! hopefully tomorrow at the meeting we can get that ironed out.
-also think only 1-2 new volunteers will be at meeting tomorrow. we need at least 5 more people i think. more stress!