Shop With Purpose: Use AmazonSmile to Donate Part of Your Purchases to LitWorld

Amazon has just launched a new project, and we couldn't be more excited! AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you.

When you shop on AmazonSmile, 0.5% of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases are donated to the charitable organization of your choice. Everything about the Amazon online shopping experience stays the same, including the shopping cart, wishlists and shipping options.

Support LitWorld by shopping at AmazonSmile. Here's how:

1. Head to smile.amazon.com and log in with the same email address and password as your regular Amazon account, or open a new account if you are a first time shopper. Note: Your purchases must be made through smile.amazon.com to be eligible for a charitable donation.

2. On your first visit to AmazonSmile, you will be prompted to select a charitable organization to receive donations from eligible purchases before you begin shopping. Type LitWorld in the search box. The search result will return "LitWorld International Inc." Click "select."

AmazonSmile will remember your selection, and every eligible purchase you make will result in a donation. You may also want to add a bookmark to AmazonSmile to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile.

The Story of a Movement for the World's Girls

The stories you shared with us at LitWorld on the Day of the Girl have made our #standup4girls movement stronger than ever.

Click here to see photos from Stand Up for Girls celebrations around the world.

Click here to see our global community honoring the women and girls whose stories have changed their world.

Visit the Stand Up for Girls blog to watch videos and to read stories from global Day of the Girl events.

Your next big opportunity to Stand Up with LitWorld for literacy as a human right is World Read Aloud Day on March 5, 2014. Register today and check back in mid-November for free activity and event planning packages.

LitWorld Launches Story21: Technology for 21st Century Learning

LitWorld has launched a family LitClub program called Story21 with our partner in Harlem, Broadway Housing Communities, to provide tablet technology, mentorship, and guidance to families as they embark on the path to 21st century literacy. Using the LitClub model, Story21 will integrate the power of story and personal narrative with apps and technology to engage families in literacy growth.

We are tremendously grateful for generous donations from Storypanda and SNAP! Learning and Scholastic. SNAP! donated a subscription to their ebook collection, providing ebooks that children and their caregivers will read together to build lasting, joyful memories. Storypanda donated book apps that allow children to read and then creatively manipulate picture books. Scholastic donated an incredible 300 Storia eBooks from their trove of children's literature. We cannot wait to use both of these in our upcoming sessions. Visit the LitClub blog to follow our Story21 journey.

Today is the International Day of the Girl. Stand Up at Noon.

Stand Up for the woman or girl who inspires you.

Stand Up for the 66 million girls around the world who are out of school.

Wherever you are, rally your community, in person and online, and stand up together for your global sisters.

Stand Up for all the girls in our LitClubs around the world, who so hunger to read and write.

Stand Up for Malala Yousafzai, the girl who fights for education, and winner of the European Union Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Stand Up because recognizing that everyone in the world has a story is how peace begins.

On October 11th Stand Up for Every Girl

October 11th is the International Day of the Girl. Worldwide, communities are ready to stand up for the 66 million girls who are out of school.

Here are your top 3 actions to Stand Up for Girls:

1. Grow the movement in your community. Share the stories of the women who have impacted your life on social media. Let these stories inspire you to take action for every girl's right to tell her stories. Here are some sample posts:

I will #standup4girls with LitWorld on 10.11.13 the #dayofthegirl

Every girl has the right to tell her story. I will #standup4girls on the #dayofthegirl

2. Add your voice to our Thunderclap. Sign up and the Thunderclap website will post the #standup4girls message automatically on October 11th at noon in unison with our supporters around the world. Click here to learn more.

3. Donate to LitWorld and give more girls the opportunity to join a LitClub and belong to a safe community of stories.

Pam Allyn Receives 2013 Scholastic Literacy Champion Award

We are proud to announce that LitWorld's Executive Director, Pam Allyn, received the 2013 Literacy Champion Award from Scholastic. This honor was presented to Pam at the Scholastic Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Symposium. Earlier in the day, Pam delivered a keynote speech to an audience of educators. Her presentation was a powerful statement of specific strategies for connecting with families and caregivers while reaffirming the wonderful essence of children and who they are and why we do what we do around literacy. The audience was moved at the simple reminder of how the deep, true love they feel for their own children is the same love felt by all parents toward their children, no matter the challenges faced or the harshness of their environment.

Also honored as a Literacy Champion was Dr. Karen Mapp, a senior lecturer at Harvard and the author and coauthor of several articles and books about the role of families and community members in the work of student achievement and school improvement.

Stand Up for Girls: Pam Allyn's Latest Blog for the Huffington Post

In her latest blog for the Huffington Post, LitWorld Founder and Executive Director, Pam Allyn, explains why personal narrative is the key ingredient for building literacy skills and the most compelling tool that we can use to effect social change. 

"There is a photo I carry with me everywhere I go.

It is a photo of a little girl. She is nine years old. She is wearing a post-it on her lapel, held in place with a pen. While I was conducting a teacher training in her school in Liberia, she was carefully watching everything I did. When I came outside, I realized she was teaching her entire school of 400 children how to do all the things I was just teaching her teachers. I thought: "She is going to make a difference. She will be a great and wonderful teacher someday."

When I returned months later, she was gone. At that young age, she disappeared from school, staying home to help her mother with the housework, home to take her place with her many sisters who had not finished school. I tried to find her again, but never could. I wonder: what would she have written on her post-it? What are the stories she would have told? This work I do is a tribute to her. I cannot find her (although I always look) but I do my work in her honor and in her spirit. There are too, too many lost girls."

Click here to read the full piece on the Huffington Post.