Breadpig would like to give a big thanks to our awesome partners, Room to Read, for turning our donation into sustainable educational institutions for communities that will enjoy them AND for sending us such amazing write-ups!

The Preschool: Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka

Students at the new XKCD preschool in Sri Lanka

Nuwara Eliya is located in the center of Sri Lanka, and ranks second out of the nine provinces in Sri Lanka for absolute poverty. It is also the only district in the country where Indian Tamils form the majority of the population. Although I could not visit Nuwara Eliya on my trip, I was fortunate enough to witness some other preschools in action in Bibile and saw what a great impact these institutions have on education and the community at large. The XKCD preschool in Nuwara Eliya is a cheerful 1000 sqft building that currently serves 43 students (16 females, 27 males) under the supervision of two teachers.

Best of all, in a supplement to our donation, the community itself donated 12% of the resources needed for the school, including the land, the construction materials and tools, and skilled and volunteer labor. For a detailed breakdown, please see the report Room to Read prepared: Tharumal Singhithi Preschool (Nuwara Eliya).

The best excerpt from the report? A description of the playground:

A two-seated swing, a math-themed slide, a four-seated see-saw, and a four-seated merry-go-round.

The opening ceremony

Breaking ground during the rainy season: no easy labor!

The dedication plaque

The Library: Bardiya, Nepal

Students studying at the library

Bardiya is a province of Nepal located in the Western Terai, the lowlands on the Indian border. It is famous for its national parks, which are home to royal bengal tigers, elephants, and rhinos. Its majority ethnic group is the Tharu, a tribe of people considered the direct descendants of the Buddha.

I was lucky enough to visit Shree Yuvak secondary school on my trip to Nepal, where I was treated to a spectacular opening ceremony for the library full of traditional Tharu dancing and lots of flowers: many pictures here. The secondary school is grades kindergarten through 10 and houses more than 1500 students and 25 teachers. In addition to constructing a reading room for the crowded school, Room to Read also has a Girls Education Program there which is truly remarkable; many of the girls involved had previously been sold into slavery as “kamlaris” who were moving past their difficult childhoods through education.

Breadpig all wreathed up

Girls Education Program scholars at Shree Yuvak Secondary School

Thanks to the new library, students now have access to books during their leisure time before and after school, as well as dedicated “library periods” of at least 45 minutes of uninterrupted reading time. The community is incredibly excited to have this resource: they provided the doors, windows, locks, lighting, flooring, and paint for the building. The report is here: Shree Yuvak Secondary School CRR CR and more pictures below!

Beth sent us an update last week to let us know that the younger Midlothian Friends got involved, too–they organized a traditional pancake breakfast fundraiser and were able to raise $160 for the cause. She also sent us these great pictures:

Riley says: Awwww yeaaaaaaah

Enjoying pancakes

The Breadpig is incredibly impressed by these youngsters and their ingenius usage of the most delicious meal of the day for good! And hey, if you’re in the greater Richmond area, why not stop by the Thrifty Quaker (good review on Yelp!) and forage yourself a superhero costume before the end of the month? Adorable Laotian kids would appreciate it!

(Besides, does Midlothian not sound like a place out of Lord of the Rings? You know your inner nerd is itching to go look for hobbit holes!)

(Dude you write too much, just show me all the pics!)

The village of Kengthan is located in the southern province of Saravan, consistently ranked one of the poorest and least educated provinces in Laos. Exactly the type of place, in other words, where our money could really do some good. Getting to Kengthan from Vientiane was, uh, complicated, so it was good that we had Viengkeo Norasingh, program director for Room to Read’s School Rooms program, to help us through it all.

Viengkeo reading XKCD

First, we took a tuk-tuk from our hotel to the southern bus station at the edge of the city. Then, we climbed into the wonderfully comfortable sleeper bus Viengkeo had booked for us and settled in for what was supposed to be a 10 hour ride to Pakse. I’ll tell the longer version of this story later, but it was 12 hours before we could refresh ourselves with a wonder-feu breakfast. After breakfast, we got into a minivan to head towards Saravan province. This is when Viengkeo informed us that there was a complication with the last leg of our trip. The minivan could get us to Lakphonpheng District, but the dirt roads leading up to Kengthan village proper had become impassable for cars. After a very bumpy hour in the minivan, we changed vehicles. Our new ride?

This.

It was like a bizarre video game. Lurching through the rain, Alexis and I ducked low-hanging mango branches, creatively shifted our weight to prevent the cart from tipping over, and watched worriedly (through our cameras) as our tractor totally forded a river. Viengkeo told us that we were the first donors to undertake this type of journey in Saravan. We were feeling pretty impressive until he then told us that his work requires him to make trips like this throughout 11 different provinces in Laos. Wow.

In front of the plaque!

With our oxen barely intact, we finally pulled into the muddy yard of the Kengthan Incomplete Primary School (a muddy KIPS, if you will). All of the students and about 30 villagers had gathered outside the school to greet us with flowers and applause. We were led inside for a presentation from the head of the village about the school. We learned that the villagers present were members of the construction committee–impressive since the population of the village was just over 400! The school took over a year to construct, with delays due to the required inspection for UXOs (more about this in the next blog post) and the difficulty of hauling construction supplies down the roads during rainy season.

Accidental photo op

This new school replaced a much smaller building that leaked when it rained. It was only the second week of the new school year so numbers were still fluctuating, but last year the school had 61 students–24 of whom were female–and 3 grades, 2 classrooms, 1 teacher, and a brightly decorated reading room with a librarian and a check-out system for the books. Kids got to school either on a communal tractor, by bike, or on foot.

The school tractor leaves after school

After we attempted to explain Breadpig and encouraged the kids to have fun with learning, we were taken into the library for a baci ceremony. The baci ceremony is usually performed to bestow blessings during special events such as births, weddings, or festivals. This one was the school’s way of saying thanks, and to make us honorary members of their community.

Getting baci'd

At the end of the ceremony, villagers and students came up to us and tied white strings around our wrists to embody their well wishes. Our translators were busy getting honored as well so I couldn’t understand the nice things people were saying to me, but it was a great opportunity to meet the kids individually even if we could only smile at each other. What was even more heartwarming, though, was that some of the kids couldn’t sit still during the ceremony and surreptitiously started to read a book in the corner!

Misbehavior we can get behind

Following this, we ran into some shenanigans trying to talk with the kids. We wanted to play with them, ask them strange questions, and get a sense of a typical school day. However, since the understanding was that we were Very Important People that demanded respect and propriety, our silly American behavior just met with confusion from the adults and shyness from the kids. I found myself wishing that I spoke enough Lao to put everyone at ease, but pantomime was certainly insufficient for explaining that we were just simple geeks who didn’t require any fussing over. Alas, the giving of money, even with the best of intentions, imposes an awkward social imbalance. Luckily, we soon shared a meal and drank too much lao-lao with the adults, which certainly helped to relax things!

We finally got our chance to goof off after classes ended, when Alexis and I spent some quality time with the kids who lingered behind at the library. They showed off their sweet dinosaur popup books, and we let them play with our cameras.

The subject becomes the filmmaker

I’m still curious to see a normal day at the school, to better understand the dynamic between teacher and student, or to know more about their curriculum, but all of those things require a level of familiarity that we did not have time (or the language skills) to develop. But ultimately, it was very reassuring to see that the kids enjoyed spending time in the library, that attendance was high even when travel was difficult, that the field coordinator overseeing the school was a spunky young woman with a big smile who was well-respected by the community, and that the village obviously now saw the school as an important institution. These kids are definitely getting a better foundational education, and it’s all been made possible by XKCD and you, our loyal legion. Not too bad for a few clicks of a mouse, huh?

Somphet and Alexis at the Laos country office for Room to Read

After a day of exploring sleepy and slow-paced Vientiane, we were knocked off our feet by Somphet’s incredible energy. Originally trained as a doctor, Somphet has been the Country Director for Room to Read in Laos for all 5 years of its existence. The sincere passion with which she spoke about the challenges and triumphs of her work is impossible to capture in text, but the data might help: starting with only a staff of 4 and an operating budget of $200,000 USD, RtR Laos has now grown to over 30 full-time staff and a large number of contractors working with a budget of 2 million USD–impressively, their operating overhead is still less than 20%. During this time, they’ve published 82 local language titles, constructed 617 reading rooms and 172 school rooms, and enrolled 1,075 girls in their Girls Education Program. The local publishing program’s titles have even won prizes at the annual Lao Book Excellence Awards for two years running!

Some of the many books published by Room to Read Laos

Slow (as in Food) Development

While these are successful numbers by any measure, Somphet is zealous about the quality of her team’s work as well. These are not cookie cutter projects hastily mass-implemented across the country: each reading room or school room represents the culmination of an arduous and individualized process that involves identifying the communities with the most urgent needs, getting community and government buy-in to the project, building local capacity, and ensuring long-term sustainability. Somphet and her team take the time to do things thoroughly at every step, investing in slow and difficult procedures that will ultimately strengthen the communities’ ability to provide for themselves.

Of all the projects, the Girls Education Program is perhaps the best embodiment of this principle. Each of the 1,075 girls in the program receive an incredible amount of individual attention to ensure that they stick with the school system until at least graduation from secondary school. In each member village, GEP maintains a “social mobilizer” who will sometimes counsel a girl for over a year just to convince her–and her family–to enroll in school instead of getting jobs in Thailand. The social mobilizers continue to mentor girls and their families throughout their education, offer life skills training, spread awareness in the village about trafficking, and work with a council of villagers to determine how scholarships and other types of assistance should be most fairly distributed according to need. Perhaps most importantly, the process often elevates the status of women in the villages and give them a voice where they previously had none. Of the 1,075 girls who have enrolled in the program, only 15 have ever dropped out–and work doesn’t even stop there. Somphet told us how her social mobilizers have made midnight phone calls to Thailand to track down girls who left without warning, making sure they are safe and, in some cases, helping them get back to the village if they’ve changed their minds. Last year, the program graduated its first 5 alumna, and is now working with the government to try to create more local job opportunities for the girls.

The program directors of the Girls Education Program and the Local Language Publishing Program read XKCD

Community Cooperation

For all of its hard work, however, RtR expects an equal amount of effort from the community and the local government. Work does not start in a province unless the local government shows a willingness to cooperate and commit some of their own resources. Through these healthy working relationships, RtR Laos was able to convince the government to add a free-form “reading period” to the school day to allow students time to read on their own. Similarly, RtR demands a significant amount of buy-in from the communities they work with. Before a school can be built, the host village must commit to raising a “challenge grant” of 15-20% of the resources necessary, including donated wood, land, and labor. Unlike other NGOs that give 100% assistance, Room to Read insists on this process to drive home the point that the community must take ownership of their school if it is to succeed in the long run. Construction is overseen by a cooperative council of villagers who make all the big decisions, and all of the actual labor is provided by villagers under the supervision of a local technical consultant hired by RtR. Villagers also provide the schools’ basic furnishings and decorations, as well as taking care of any maintenance or repairs required. The teachers at the school undergo a 3 year training program designed so that the schools would be self-sustaining after RtR’s initial funding runs out. Though this is not the fastest way to build a school, it is the sturdiest–by the time Room to Read pulls out of the community to move on to a new one, the school is fully self-reliant and folded seamlessly into the village.

Local Solutions

Somphet attributes part of Room to Read Laos’ success to the autonomy she has. Rather than receiving assignments to implement from the global office, Somphet and her staff generate ideas based on data and reports from the facilitators and mobilizers on the ground. At least once a month, field facilitators visit the 10-15 schools under their jurisdiction and report back on progress and efficacy. Somphet recalls that while she was originally unconvinced about the need for a literacy program, she changed her mind after personally conducting a survey in Oudomxay that revealed that many 3rd grade students could not read simple words despite passing the government’s literacy tests. Solutions are always implemented with the local context in mind: Laos’ unique culture, the different needs of each village or district. “My responsibility is to the children of my country first,” said Somphet. “I will only implement programs that I know will help. If the global office gives me a suggestion and I don’t think it will work, I always speak up. I’m not always right, but maybe there are things specific to my country that they don’t know–and how will they know if I don’t say anything?”

This emphasis on localized solutions is bolstered by RtR Laos’ homegrown staff. Field facilitators and social mobilizers always live in the districts they work in, and every contractor and staff member is from Laos. Somphet explains that not only does this policy keep their costs down and retain local knowledge, but it also does its part to mitigate Laos’ brain drain by providing well-paying and meaningful jobs within the country.

Of course, there are still many challenges down the road. Even if schools begin to set aside budgets for buying new books and supplies, many of the provinces do not have good book stores and travel to Vientiane is expensive and often difficult due to poor road conditions (stay tuned for our next blogpost for more on this!) Furthermore, there is a lot of work to be done at the secondary school level: while there are just UNDER 9000!! primary schools in Laos, there are only about 1200 primary schools. This means that for many students, continuing their educations suddenly means daily commutes to the next village or even dormitories, allowances, and separation from their families. This accounts for a drop in enrollment–almost 30%–that affects women disproportionately. “Our work is not very easy, but my staff is very good.” Somphet said with a chuckle that revealed the extent of the understatement. Steadily and carefully, this team is strategically using resources from benevolent people like you to make small changes that will snowball into huge developments for Laos in the coming years. We’re incredibly inspired by Room to Read Laos’ dedication to creative local solutions for local problems, doing good work the right way, and ambitious undertakings: kawp jai, and sok dee!

In addition to Bourdaining record-breaking amounts of pho and curry, we will be visiting a wide variety of Room to Read sites in the region. The first stop is Laos, where Alexis and Christina will both visit RtR’s country offices in Vientiane as well as the elementary school in Salavan province that we funded with XKCD book proceeds. After that, Alexis goes back to real life, but Christina continues on to Vietnam. After visiting RtR’s country offices and a site or two in Ho Chi Minh City, she will head North to Hanoi to wish the city a slightly belated 1000th birthday. Then it’s onward to Sri Lanka: while a visit to Nuwara Eliya where the Breadpig-funded school room is not possible due to tightened security, Christina will visit with the country offices in Colombo. Finally, Christina will visit Nepal, where she’ll stop in Kathmandu before heading out to meet with the Bardiya community in which the Breadpig-funded reading room is currently under construction.

tl;dr Tour Dates (subject to slight changes)

Oct. 2nd – Oct. 9th: Vientiane and Pakse, Laos
Oct. 10th – Oct. 14th: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Oct. 14th – Oct. 17th: Hanoi, Vietnam
Oct. 18th – Oct. 23rd: Colombo, Sri Lanka
Oct. 24th – Nov. 1st: Kathmandu and Bardiya, Nepal

Throughout this epic odyssey, we’ll be providing you (internet gods willing) with pictures, videos, and blogposts of everything we’re seeing so that you can have a better sense of the work Room to Read is doing with your hard-earned cash.

But we need your help! Have suggestions for places to go, things to do, noms to nom, or people/organizations to meet up with? Or maybe you have questions you’d like to ask the students, teachers, or communities being impacted by our efforts? Do you live in one of these places? If so, PLEASE leave us a comment or email christina AT breadpig.org! We are totally open to all suggestions, ideas, and especially to buying beer for Breadpig legionnaires.

But the next time you’re about to checkout with your Amazon cart full of 3 Wolf Moon Shirts, consider adding the special breadpig-published paperback from Randall Munroe.

We asked you, the breadpig legion, to vote on the available locations for each of our three projects.

Unfortunately, one downside of democracy is that takes time to collect votes. During the week of voting, a major Room to Read donor sponsored the Local Language Publishing in Nepal for this year, which was the #1 vote-getter in our poll. Fortunately, the #2 vote-getter (India) was only 6 votes behind and will be the location for our Local Language Publishing project.

• School Building (cost $20,000) in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka
• Constructed Reading Room (cost $19,000) in Nepal
• Local Language Publishing (cost $15,000) in India

Breadpig legion, your participation doesn’t end here. Now we need dedications for the School Building in Sri Lanka and Constructed Reading Room in Nepal. Breadpig legion, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Here’s the current Reading Room and School Building we’re replacing:

“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” – Plato.

Publishing this book was a gift from the readers of XKCD, an internet comic strip. The world is full of exciting things to discover. We hope you find some of them.

And speaking of that xkcd school in Laos, I’ll be travelling their this fall to document our first Room to Read project in photos, videos, and interviews. Let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like us to ask while we’re there.

You see, there was a puzzle throughout the xkcd book we published, which some ambitious xkcd readers managed to crack after months of work.

The solution was a set of coordinates, time, and date with lots of love. That day was this past Saturday the 26th. There was a bobcat in a box, an xkcd kite (no camera, unfortunately), delicious xkcd cupcakes, and lots of glorious geekery!

Check out the good thread going on the xkcd forums with loads of extra anecdotes and pictures.

And what better way than to let you, the breadpig legion vote on where we should build? Based on just the xkcd book tour, you all gave enough to build an xkcd school in Laos ($32,000) that opened earlier this year. Now with our publisher profits from the sale of the book, we’ve got some more literacy to spread (and hopefully produce many new potential buyers of xkcd: volume 0).

Last year’s breadpig profits from xkcd: volume 0 are enough to build one of each of the following: (1) School Room, (1) Reading Room, and (1) Local Language Publishing Program.

Help us decide! Voting is limited to once per day, you wonderful cheaters, you — get your votes in before May 17th at noon Eastern and by all means lobby!

The mathematically-inclined of you will notice that these 3 projects total $54,000. Breadpig is making up the ~$1,000 difference with some of the xkcd book profits we’ve already earned in 2010.

Room to Read established its School Room program to provide children in the developing world with better access to appropriate learning spaces. The School Room program sets high standards and expectations while partnering with local communities to meet specific village needs in building primary and secondary schools, and in some cases, preschools. They’re currently only funding schools in 4 regions of Sri Lanka, which we’ve explained in greater detail here thanks to a breadpig legionnaire, Nimmi Ariyaratne.

UNESCO identified having access to a “literate environment” as one of the critical factors in supporting literacy development.  If children do not have regular access to engaging books and other reading materials to practice their literacy skills, they are less likely to become lifelong readers and learners. Room to Read seeks to address this issue by establishing children’s libraries in communities where poverty, ethnicity, or other social and cultural barriers put children at a significant educational disadvantage.

In schools that lack enough classroom space to house a library, Room to Read constructs a stand-alone library building complete with book in various languages as well as English language books, furniture, and book shelves. Room to Read also provides three years of training and support to teachers who will manage the library.

Room to Read is significantly increasing the quantity and diversity of children’s books published in local languages by sourcing and publishing new children’s literature in every country where we work. The Local Language Publishing program is committed to providing children with materials that will inspire them to read, expand their minds, and develop a lifelong love for reading and learning.

(Unfortunately, there is little information on the Matale District)

Nuwara Eliya
Population density: Around 400/km2
Nuwara Eliya is in the central province, which ranks second poorest out of the nine provinces in Sri Lanka for absolute poverty. A large percentage of the district’s population engages in manual labor on tea estates. These workers belong to the minority ethnic group of “Indian Tamils.” Estate workers are often geographically isolated, and also excluded from the mainstream economy and society. They usually live in very poor housing, sometimes entire families in a single room, often without even basic facilities and sanitation. They are among the least represented and most marginalized (both socially economically) groups in Sri Lanka. Nuwara Eliya had one of the lowest rates for computer literacy in the country and one of the highest rates of under nutrition and stunting among children. There is a significant lack of schools, educational equipment, libraries, and computer facilities in the remote areas of Nuwara Eliya. Few international and national NGOs operate in this area.

Moneragala District
Population Density: Around 70/km2
Moneragala ranks highest in Sri Lanka in terms of absolute poverty. Over a third of the district’s population lives below the official poverty line. Over half the population lives in semi-permanent housing. About three fourths of the district’s population face severe-extreme food insecurity. Due to the political violence in the South of the country in the past, a significant number of males disappeared/died, and as a result there are still a large number of female headed households, which are among the worst off economically in the area. The district has a low number of schools when compared with its population. Many of these schools lack facilities and qualified teachers are unwilling to work in the area due to its remoteness. The district also has one of the lowest numbers of libraries. Literacy levels for the district were much lower than the national average, and the district has one of the lowest rates of computer literacy. Few international and national NGOs operate in this area, given its acute needs and large population.

Mannar District
Population Density: Around 60/km2
Much of the infrastructure in this area was destroyed during the conflict years. Over 50% of houses are estimated to have been destroyed. The district has a number of internally displaced persons, and there are still IDPs living in emergency sites. Refugees who fled Mannar during the war years have now started to slowly resettle. However they have no access to basic needs such as proper housing, education, and health facilities. There are a large number of families headed by widows as a result of the conflict. There is a high incidence of wasting, stunting and under nutrition among the children. Much of the area relies largely on food rations and aid. There are around 95 schools in the area. However there is a significant lack of qualified teachers willing to work in Mannar. There are a relatively large number of international and national level organizations working in the district, given its acute needs and post-war situation.

Matale District
Population Density: About .4/km2
Matale District is in the central province, which ranks second poorest out of the nine provinces in Sri Lanka for absolute poverty. The area has a relatively high rate of computer literacy.

OK, I’m ready to vote. Take me back to the top.

This happened back on March 10th, but the breadpig just got around to putting this blog together. For what it’s worth, davean, the not-Randall-half of xkcd was alerted by this very porcine hero. But if blog entry is news to you, you obviously have better things to do than keep up with solving geeky book puzzles. Your loss.

The news scored a lot of attention on Slashdot and a Wired story. We don’t want to ruin the surprise if you’re keen on picking up a copy to try decrypting yourself, but you may want to check the spoilers as July approaches if you haven’t solved it yet…