Can you feel it?! Sparks are flying here at LitWorld, and we hope you feel the electric energy too. Today officially marks 100 Days until World Read Aloud Day® (WRAD), our biggest celebration of the year.
Mark your calendars for February 5th, 2024, and get ready to join us for a full day of magic as we celebrate the joy of reading aloud.
Dear LitWorld Friend,
In 2011, the United Nations declared October 11th as the International Day of the Girl, a day dedicated to recognizing the rights of girls. Since then, LitWorld has celebrated this day, rallying our global community to join our "Stand Up for Girls" campaign, where we advocate for every girl's right to share her story and transform the world.
The LitWorld community has proudly celebrated the International Day of the Girl for the past 13 years, and this year was no different.
Our global partners commemorated this day by putting together special activities to empower girls in their local communities, and we couldn’t be prouder to stand united in this mission alongside them.
Thanks to your support, we can continue to Stand Up for Girls not just on October 11th, but every single day.
Scroll down to see a recap of how our partners celebrated!
Dear LitWorld Friend,
Greetings from our headquarters in New York City! From where we are, the leaves are beginning to take on the warm hues of autumn, ushering in the new season. It's a wonderful time to renew our energy as we prepare for the last quarter of the year.
As the season turns, we find it fitting to welcome new changes to our team. We’re grateful to every community member who has contributed to the past, present and future of LitWorld, and we look forward to this next stage of growth.
Read on to learn how our LitWorld team is evolving.
This past World Read Aloud Day, we teamed up with Scholastic and Storyvoice to launch our first ever all-day WRAD-a-thon—and thanks to hundreds of thousands of listeners like you tuning in from around the globe, it was our biggest World Read Aloud Day event yet. Check out some of these awe-inspiring stats from the big day!
The LitWorld team is thrilled to officially announce our new Executive Director, Caitlin Cassaro.
Caitlin Cassaro
Caitlin joins LitWorld following an impressive ten years as the Executive Director of Extreme Kids & Crew, an organization dedicated to providing play and arts programing, as well as social-emotional learning and family support, to young people with disabilities. Before Extreme Kids, she served as CFO for Friends of Firefighters, a nonprofit mental health and wellness organization founded in response to the 9/11 attacks, and co-founded the Red Hook Playgroup, a nonprofit progressive community-based preschool. Caitlin is also a dual masters’ (MBA and MSW) recipient.
Caitlin believes deeply that service is successful only when done in collaboration with the people and communities being served. She takes great pride in leading nonprofits with transparency, business acumen, and empathy. She is incredibly honored and excited to step into the role of new Executive Director for LitWorld, an organization that encompasses the values she holds dear, and to partner with the staff and board to drive the mission forward.
“I deeply connect to LitWorld’s mission and appreciate how our community-based programming comes to life through collaboration and respect. To be literate is to be able to read the world around us—to be able to tell our story— and I am honored to be part of the team and to deepen and expand this valuable work.”
Earlier this February, millions of readers, writers, and storytellers raised their voices for the 14th annual World Read Aloud Day® (WRAD), making this year's celebration one of our biggest yet.
In our WRAD-a-thon alone, over 19 different Scholastic authors and guest readers streamed live on Storyvoice from nine different countries, reaching more than 400,000 readers and 12,000 classrooms!
Stay tuned as we share even more incredible stats and celebrations from the big day, and check out a few highlights from LitWorld's program partners and more organizations from around the globe below!
In Uganda, Art of a Child hosted an incredible World Read Aloud Day celebration for their community with games, reading crowns, and—of course—plenty of read-alouds!
In Pakistan, over 330 people participated as Seeds of Hope Foundation celebrated World Read Aloud Day in the Burj community. The day included games, arts and crafts, a special read-aloud, a parade, and a delicious dinner of chicken biryani.
In Indonesia, World Read Aloud Day events were held far and wide at schools, libraries, and more! Our thanks to @ndoropapih for sharing, and to @readaloudindonesia and all the hard-working volunteers for making these celebrations possible.
In the Philippines, Project PEARLS teamed up with the National Library of the Philippines to host an all-out World Read Aloud Celebration for communities in Tondo and Bulacan including reading crowns, read-alouds, and a parade!
LitClub moms and girls working together on a communal chicken coop Innovation Project at Art of a Child, Uganda
Today is International Day of the Girl—a day dedicated to celebrating the billions of girls around the globe and raising awareness of the many challenges they still face.
When girls thrive, so do their communities. That's why a key part of LitWorld's programming centers on amplifying the voices of girls and women around the globe.
Our LitClubs and LitMoms Clubs provide women and girls across 30+ countries not only with safe spaces, a supportive network of peers, and invaluable literacy and business skills, but with the confidence they need to advocate for themselves and become leaders within their families, communities, and beyond.
An investment in girls is an investment in a brighter future for us all. Join us in listening to their voices and celebrating their strength—today and every day.
Meet Jarfsa: a dynamic sixth-grader and LitClub member at Centre for Development, India.
When Jarfsa first began attending LitClubs at Centre for Development four years ago, she was utterly terrified of crossing the busy street that led to the building. There were times when she would be so frozen with fear that she would stand on the sidewalk unable to cross, often giving up and returning home to her family in tears.
When Jarfsa shared this problem with her friends in LitClub, they encouraged her to ask for assistance from fellow LitKids and community members—all of whom were happy to help. With their support, not only was she able to overcome her fear and cross the road all by herself, but she also gained the crucial self-confidence she needs to continue following her dreams—no matter what obstacles stand in her way.
LitWorld has always been an organization of new ideas.
From our innovative community-based approach to our LitClub and LitCamp programs that have revolutionized social-emotional learning, LitWorld has been breaking new ground since the very beginning. Now, we’re ready to lead the way once again with our newest initiative: Innovation Partnerships.
Launched earlier this year, Innovation Partnerships are the next step in widening both the reach and impact of LitWorld’s work. Thanks to this new partnership model, not only are we able to continue running vital LitWorld programming throughout our partner communities, but we can also work with partners to explore new ways of creating change. In doing so, we can continue pioneering the best practices for teaching, enriching, and transforming young lives everywhere.
Our new partnership model divides LitWorld's existing partners into one of two equally important groups: Network Partners and Innovation Partners.
Network Partners
Network Partners will continue to run LitClubs, LitCamps, and more throughout their communities, all while enjoying access to LitWorld’s trainings, resources, and wide network of partners. Through this, our Network Partners can continue their dedicated work bringing the joy of LitWorld’s life-changing programs to more kids and families than ever before.
Innovation Partners
Innovation Partners are a select group of partners that will not only continue to run in-depth LitWorld programming, but will also collaborate with LitWorld to test new ideas and programs (called "Innovation Projects") designed to solve the unique needs of their communities. Through these Innovation Projects, we can work together with our partners to discover the most effective ways of creating lasting, sustainable change—and then bring those discoveries to communities everywhere.
To combat gender inequality within their community, our partners at Centre for Development (CfD) launched their Innovation Project: a two-day workshop to unite and strengthen women in their communities.
The workshop allowed both Hindu Dalit and Muslim women (two groups with a history of “hatred and violence against each other”) to bond over their shared experiences of poverty, discrimination, and sexual violence, as well as learn valuable lessons on leadership and menstrual hygiene. According to coordinators at CfD, “[These women] are no longer the same persons they were... over the two days, they could reflect about themselves and discover the tremendous strength that lies deep within them.”
After noticing that many students were dropping out of school due to low morale and disinterest in a “boring classroom methodology”, our partners at Ready for Reading in Rwanda launched an Innovation Project to help teachers reduce the rate of school dropouts within their community.
By educating teachers about the LitWorld 7 Strengths and how to integrate them into the curriculum, these teachers can keep their students interested and engaged throughout their learning. The first training session took place in April with several teachers from Abadahigwa primary school, and our partners have been hard at work continuing to reach even more schools within the community.
“It takes a village to raise a child.”
At LitWorld, we know just how true this proverb is—especially when it comes to learning. In order to truly thrive, a child's learning cannot be limited to the confines of a classroom. Every child deserves access to a joyful learning environment at school and at home, and every caretaker deserves the chance to create one.
First piloted in 2012, LitMoms Clubs provide caretakers everywhere with the tools they need to support themselves and their families. By giving mothers access to the entrepreneurial training, literacy empowerment, and social support that so many women are often denied, LitWorld helps women become leaders in both their homes and communities—creating change for generations to come.
Recognizing the importance of family in a child's learning, LitWorld first developed LitMoms Clubs in 2012 to provide even further support for our partner communities. These revolutionary programs combined literacy empowerment and social support with income generation components such as technology training, sewing lessons, and food/nutrition workshops. Initially piloted in a few select locations, LitMoms Clubs now run in countries around the globe and have become an essential tool for supporting our partners.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, LitMoms played an especially pivotal role in their communities. At Art of a Child in Uganda, LitMom Jessica used the skills she learned in LitMoms Clubs to make and sell protective masks, preventing the spread of COVID-19 while earning income to support her family.
In Pakistan, LitMoms at Seeds of Hope took action by starting a friendly sewing competition to make face masks, which they then distributed for free. Safia, winner of the competition, stated that "[I] am really grateful to LitWorld and Seeds of Hope Foundation for giving me this opportunity to use my skills for the betterment of humanity in such a crucial circumstance."
LitMoms also proved vital in keeping kids learning throughout the pandemic. By reading aloud together and sharing activities they had learned in LitMoms Clubs, mothers at Ready for Reading in Rwanda were able to keep their families safe, engaged, and hopeful despite school closures and shutdowns.
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