Our Work

Vision

To support a sustainable literate environment in the developing world.

Mission

To enable people to learn by developing partnerships that provide resources for learning, promote awareness and understanding, and encourage self-reliance.

Training for Teachers and Librarians

Many teachers in the developing world lack the necessary skills to teach literacy, or to use books effectively in their classrooms. We support our partners to help teachers learn library management skills and research-based techniques to teach reading and writing.

Donated Books

Each year, North American publishers donate hundreds of thousands of new books to CODE – everything from preschool picture books to primary school chapter books to biology and geometry textbooks for secondary students. Our partners in the developing world select books from checklists, and then make them available to schools and libraries across the country. In some countries, this can involve transporting books via mini-bus, speedboat and even donkey-cart.

Local Publishing

While English, French and Portuguese language books play an important role in developing countries, it’s critical that children learn to read and write with materials written in their mother tongue. We help supply local language stories that relate directly to children’s own experience by working with local authors, illustrators, editors and publishers to produce children’s books and other reading materials in more than 17 languages. We further strengthen local publishers and printers by providing pre-publication orders for locally-created titles. We also support our partners to distribute the books at low cost or no cost to community libraries and schools.

Library and Resource Centres

It’s one thing to have books, it’s another to make them accessible to students and the larger community. With our partners, we provide libraries and resource centres for students and their communities.