In Cambodia, 73% of 3 – 5 year-olds are BEHIND in their development in literacy (UNICEF, 2018). According to the findings from PISA-D by OECD in 2018, 41% of students at 15 years old and below in Cambodia perform below the baseline in Reading. What has been contributing to this problem is the lack of Early Reading Habits. We believe that the main root cause is the lack of ACCESS to fun Extensive reading resources in Khmer language for young children in their primary levels —despite of the efforts from the Ministry and some big NGOs in Cambodia. And the pandemic makes it even worse since schools have been closed for quite some time now.

Therefore, we have formed a team of committed and passionate individuals from different backgrounds and skills to work together to resolve this solvable issue.

First, we aim to develop a kid-friendly mobile application consisting of free story e-books and animated version of those stories in Khmer language. We intentionally turn the books into animated video stories because it is a simple fact that kids love watching cartoons.

We also grade the story books/videos into 18 Reading Levels to fit with different reading abilities of the Primary school students so that they get the opportunity to read at the right level with suitable progression. Reading at the right level provides them with a sense of achievement while being able to enjoy the journeys each story brings. As a result, they will grow the love for reading, so they will start to take up reading as a part of their habit, ultimately making them independent learners, thinkers and leaders.

"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." Margaret Fuller

"Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." Harry S. Truman

We have gathered hundreds of Khmer story e-books and produced about 50 animated videos from those books so far. We have launched our Facebook page to share our videos with parents as well as raise awareness around the importance of Extensive Reading at a young age. We also have a Telegram Channel where we send in Video Stories and e-books every day for a community of parents and teachers who have/teach kids in Primary Levels. Parents and teachers have been really happy to receive the videos and e-books because their kids/students enjoy watching the beautifully-illustrated animation while being able to read along with the voice over using the Khmer Subtitles. We aim to launch the first version of our mobile application both on Andriod and iOS with around 600 e-books and animated version of those stories by the end of 2021. Moreover, we have been working closely with primary school principals in Kampong Chnang province to ensure that we could reach at least 10,000 young readers after we launch the first version of the mobile application.