Ready for Reading

Mission

Ready for Reading provides literacy, life skills and educational resources to children and adults in rural Rwanda. We foster a culture of reading and the idea that literacy is a powerful key to lifelong learning, unlocking the potential of preschoolers to grandparents inspiring them to dream big and hope for a future they never thought possible.

In a part of the world where learning to read and write is not an expectation or even a possibility, Literacy Changes Everything.

Organization

Ready for Reading, a Rwanda-based nonprofit organization founded in 2009, is passionate about making change in this small country in the heart of Africa, with big ambitions. With the belief that literacy and education are not only human rights, but the foundations of prosperity and peace, Ready for Reading has built and in 2012 opened an 8,000 square-foot Library and Learning Center in Rwinkwavu, an underserved rural area hardest hit by the 1994 genocide.

Ready for Reading’s Library/Learning Center has become the heart of the community promoting literacy, nurturing curiosity and love of learning; serving as the information, education, cultural and social hub for Rwinkwavu and the surrounding area.

What Ready for Reading has created in Rwinkwavu is the country-wide model for community libraries, instrumental to their development in Rwanda and stands as a beacon of opportunity, hope and healing.

What We Do - Summary

 Ready for Reading breaks down barriers to literacy and education for preschoolers to grandparents with community-based programs and activities in a resource-rich space where they learn, engage, enjoy and thrive.

Every day we teach children and adults in rural Rwanda to read and write, use a computer, and through creative storytelling, reading programs/book clubs, music, basketball and community events, instill the idea that literacy and reading are the cornerstone for a more productive, healthy, fulfilling and prosperous future; giving them the skills, self-worth and confidence to make sustainable change in their lives.