Overview

This initiative is the first of a series of global, youth-driven initiatives to better the world. The goals of this first initiative are:

1. to improve the reading proficiency of students currently in school worldwide.
2. to dramatically reduce the number of children currently not in school due to hunger or extreme poverty.

The basic concept is for children and youth currently in school to read as many hours as they can during the month of March, 2018 and to get as many people as possible to pledge donations for each hour read (global or local hours) to fund programs to get as many of the poorest children in the world, who are currently unable to attend school because they have to devote so many hours to foraging for, begging for or working for food to be able to get food by attending school and getting an education.

For details on the factors that will determine the success of this initiative, please go to the following:

1. Maximizing Participation (Maximizing the number of children and youth that participate in the read-a-thon worldwide)
2. Maximizing Hours Read (maximizing the number of hours read by each reader during the duration of the read-a-thon)
3. Maximizing Funds Raised (Maximizing the amount pledged for every hour read. Note that every $ raised is used twice:
   • once as an incentive for readers to maximize the number of hours read
   • and once to provide food in school to enable the world’s poorest children to be able to attend school and also get an education. )
4. Maximizing Children Helped (Maximizing the increase in the number of children attending school due to the availability of food in schools.)