Worldfund and your book giving/buying impact

Posted by John on 02.15.2010 at 11:48 am

Erin Sawaya and Michelle Viegas of Worldfund recently paid a visit to Better World Books’ distribution center where they provided us an update on their progress improving literacy in Latin America. Better World Books book donors and readers have helped raise over $150,000 for Worldfund since they became a literacy partner in 2007.

Worldfund’s mission is to raise the quality and relevance of education in Latin America—the key to transforming lives and breaking the cycle of poverty. They do this through scholarship funding and through teacher and principal training programs. There is an excellent introductory video about Worldfund on their website.

Photo: Michelle Viegas, Director of Programs & Strategic Outreach, and Erin Sawaya, Vice President of Development and Communications, speak to Better World Books employees.

Presentations from our partners always have loads of great information, but there’s usually a key fact or two that jump out for me. In this case it was that $600 can provide a scholarship to a child for a full year (in case you’re interested here’s a link to the donations page).

Photo: Rosa Valdez, a Book Scanner at Better World Books’ Mishawaka location, discusses literacy in Latin America with Erin Sawaya of Worldfund.

Worldfund currently impacts 86,000 students annually, in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela. Their goal is to reach 250,000 Latin American students annually by 2015.

Photo: Bill Hajicek, Better World Books Quality Assurance, in discussion with Michelle Viegas of Worldfund.

In addition to Worldfund visiting us, we had the chance to visit some of the Worldfund beneficiaries in Brazil back in 2008.   What a great experience.  Don’t miss the blogs about the Starfish School and Women and Education in Brazil.  Here are some fun photos from that trip:

Photo: Above – Jesse Ault, head of Customer Care for BWB, builds a bookshelf at the Starfish School. Right – the completed bookshelf.
Photo: “Book Getter” Aaron King has a little fun with the kids at the Starfish School.	Photo: BWB Founder Xavier Helgesen learns from students at the Starfish School.

Have your say » | Tagged Our Partners, latin america, literacy, Starfish School, worldfund