The pleasure of turning the beautiful pages of a book is an ultimate happiness for any book lover. There is plenty of knowledge hidden in any book. Even the famous quote, "Reading maketh a full man", a quote that we very frequently use to explain the value of reading, emphasizes how important reading is to any individual.

But, did you know there are so many unfortunate children in Sri Lanka who have not even seen or read the Harry Potter series, the Twilight, Anne of Green Gables, or even the books of great writers like, Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters. Some of the schools in our Country do not even have proper library facilities, where children could go and sit and read books to their heart’s content.

We were shocked to learn that there are so many thousands of students who are not fortunate enough to turn the page of a new book to enhance their knowledge, from the director of the Room to Read Organization in Sri Lanka, a non-profit organization, Glenfrey de Mel. Children in the villages are dying to read books of famous authors.

Room to Read was founded on the belief that "World Change Starts with Educated Children" and education is a key to break the cycle of poverty and ignorance.

The story of Room to Read is an interesting one. It began in 1998 when its founder and Executive Chairman, John Wood was working at Microsoft as an executive. He had visited Nepal in 1998, on a vacation backpacking in the Himalayas.

He had met a middle-aged Nepalese man who invited him to visit a school in a neighbouring village. Hoping for a chance to see the real Nepal, John agreed.

The man who took him around was a Nepalese "Education Resource Officer." It was to his shock that he had seen the harsh reality of a remote South Asian school with millions of Nepalese children where there were almost no books. John was stunned to discover that the few books they had - a Danielle Steele romance, the Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia and a few other backpacker castoffs - were so precious that they were kept under lock and key, to protect them from the children! He returned the next year to the school with 3000 books and rebuilt the library of the school.

The Organization started its operations in Sri Lanka in 2005 and has established 665 libraries.

According to Glen de Mel, the libraries constructed by Room to Read are different from the traditional library. It is a place, where teachers work with the students to support the reading habit and address the issue of literacy.

"Our mission does not end after we complete our project, we continuously check on the progress of the children and also of the teachers, since we train the tutorial staff," Glen de Mel explained.

The organization has established branches in Monaragala, Anuradhapura, Trincomalee, Hambantota, Galle and also in Puttalam. It hopes to start a new project "Book to book" campaign to build a bridge between International Schools and government schools.

"We will be starting a project where we could give scholastic books to leading government and International Schools. In return, they will have to give us books which we will distribute in rural schools," he added.

It is very important for any individual to know his or her mother tongue for without it an individual is not a complete man. As a result, the Organization has begun to focus not only on English books but also on Sinhala language books.

"We publish children’s story books in the country’s mother tongue. In Sri Lanka we publish story books in Sinhala and Tamil. We also train local authors to write books for children. We have held children’s creative writing competitions and the winners have seen their work in print," he explained.

The Organization’s education programme extends its hand to the villages. The girls’ education programme, empowers girls to achieve their educational targets and trains them on life skills.

The project is a six year scholarship programme starting off from students in year six. It has 2200 scholars under the programme from a number of remote areas in the country.

Meanwhile, Glen de Mel explained, literacy programmes are also conducted in the Vilgamuwa zone, one of the areas with minimal facilities in the country. Around 613 students have been chosen for the programme along with teachers who first undergo a training programme for the classes.

Room to Read, Sri Lanka, is conducting their projects with the library development unit of the Ministry of Education and the Child Secretariat of the Ministry of Child Development.

Room to Read’s projects are currently focused in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, South Africa, and Zambia - all countries with a desperate lack of resources to educate their children. In addition to these countries, they continue to research expansion into new countries and new projects each year.