September is Basic Education & Literacy Month

MONTHLY THEMES

Education Opens Doors

                 —and Rotary Helps Keep Them Open

Each September, Rotary recognizes Basic Education and Literacy Month, a time for Rotary and Rotaract clubs to strengthen learning opportunities for children and adults in their communities and around the world.

Education is more than the ability to read and write. It gives people the knowledge, confidence, and skills they need to improve their health, earn a living, participate in their communities, resolve conflicts, and build better futures.

Rotary International reports that more than 775 million people over the age of 15 are unable to read and write, representing approximately 17 percent of the world’s adult population. Rotary’s goal is to strengthen the ability of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce disparities in access to education, and expand learning opportunities for both children and adults.

Education Creates Lasting Impact

Literacy is one of the foundations of sustainable community development. A child who learns to read gains access to a lifetime of knowledge. An adult who develops literacy, language, financial, or digital skills becomes better equipped to find employment, manage family responsibilities, understand health information, and participate fully in community life.

Rotary members support education in many ways. Around the world, clubs establish and improve school libraries, distribute books and learning materials, train teachers, provide scholarships, support adult literacy programs, introduce new teaching methods, and improve access to technology.

These efforts reflect Rotary’s 2026–27 presidential message, Create Lasting Impact. The most successful education projects do more than make a one-time donation. They respond to needs identified by the community, involve local educators and families, establish measurable goals, and create systems that can continue after the initial project has ended.

Education, Health, and WASH Are Connected

Education does not exist in isolation. Students cannot learn effectively when they are frequently sick, lack safe drinking water, or attend schools without adequate toilets and handwashing facilities.

Rotary emphasizes that access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene reduces waterborne disease, helps children remain healthy, and improves school attendance. School-based WASH projects can therefore advance both Rotary’s Basic Education and Literacy and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene areas of focus.

A club might help a school install handwashing stations, improve toilets, provide menstrual-hygiene facilities, ensure access to safe drinking water, or introduce age-appropriate hygiene education. These projects remove barriers to attendance and create safer, healthier learning environments.

What Can Our Club Do?

We can begin by speaking with schools, libraries, adult-learning programs, community organizations, teachers, parents, and students. We can ask what is preventing people from learning and what assistance would make the greatest difference.

Your club could:

  • Organize a book, dictionary, or school-supply drive based on needs identified by local educators.
  • Establish or improve a classroom, school, hospital, senior-center, or community library.
  • Recruit members to serve as reading partners, tutors, mentors, or classroom volunteers.
  • Support English-language learning, adult literacy, financial literacy, or digital-skills programs.
  • Provide scholarships, transportation assistance, uniforms, technology, or other resources that help students remain in school.
  • Sponsor teacher training or provide educational materials developed in consultation with teachers.
  • Support early-childhood literacy and encourage parents to read with their children.
  • Partner with an Interact or Rotaract club on a reading, mentoring, or school-improvement project.
  • Improve water, sanitation, handwashing, or menstrual-hygiene facilities in schools.
  • Collaborate with another Rotary club on an international education or literacy project.

Districts and clubs around the Rotary world use September to organize tutoring programs, distribute learning materials, strengthen school resources, promote adult literacy, and remind their communities that education is fundamental to opportunity and human dignity.

Build Partnerships for Greater Impact

Strong education projects begin with listening. Rather than deciding what a school or community needs, clubs should involve the intended beneficiaries in project planning.

Consider partnering with:

  • Schools, libraries, and parent associations
  • Literacy and adult-education organizations
  • Local colleges and universities
  • Teachers and retired educators
  • Interact and Rotaract clubs
  • Community and faith-based organizations
  • Businesses that can provide books, equipment, technology, or professional expertise
  • Rotary clubs and districts in other countries

Partnerships can expand a project’s reach, strengthen local ownership, and help ensure that its benefits continue over time.

Measure More Than the Number of Books Donated

Donations are valuable, but lasting impact should be measured by the change they help produce.

Depending on the project, clubs might measure:

  • Improvements in reading or mathematics skills
  • Increased school attendance
  • The number of adults completing literacy or language programs
  • Teacher participation in professional development
  • Increased use of a school or community library
  • Reduced absenteeism following improvements to school WASH facilities
  • The number of students continuing to the next level of education
  • Feedback from students, teachers, parents, and community leaders

Clear goals and appropriate measurements help clubs learn from their projects, demonstrate results to supporters, and develop stronger programs in the future.

Sunshine Rotary in Action

Basic education and literacy have been recurring priorities in Sunshine Rotary’s international service, particularly through partnerships serving disadvantaged students in Bangladesh, Bermuda and Tanzania.

Literacy for Change

Working with the Rotary and Rotaract Clubs of Islamabad in Chattogram, Bangladesh, Sunshine Rotary supported the Literacy for Change project at the Rotary-supported Free School in the Goalpara slum area.

The project provided backpacks, notebooks, pencils, erasers, and other essential school supplies to 70 students whose families could not afford them. Club members also contributed to The Wave, a sustainable scholarship initiative that awarded scholarships to five talented but financially disadvantaged students so they could continue their education.

Books and Learning Materials

In another partnership with the Rotary Club of Chittagong North, Sunshine Rotary distributed children’s books and educational supplies to several hundred elementary-school students in a remote and underserved village.

The Club also provided 50 illustrated children’s books to girls at the Monu Mia and Sultana Girls Orphanage in Chandpur. The books used rhymes, illustrations, and simple stories to help children develop literacy and learn positive life lessons.

Improving Access to School

Sunshine International Service Director Syed Mahfuz supported the Atlas School in Tanzania by donating school buses and educational materials. The transportation helps children reach school more reliably and expands access for families who may otherwise face significant barriers.

Earlier, Syed donated a min-bus to the Rotary Club of Hamilton, Bermuda which in turn made it available to an organization serving children of parents affected by gun violence.

These projects recognize that educational access depends on more than classroom instruction. Students also need books, supplies, transportation, scholarships, safe water, supportive adults, and learning environments that allow them to remain in school and succeed.

Take Action This September

Basic education and literacy give people the tools to shape their own futures. Whether your club donates books, mentors a student, supports a teacher, improves a school library, provides safe water and sanitation, or develops a larger grant-funded initiative, every thoughtful action can create a lasting ripple of opportunity.

This September, let us use our professional skills, community relationships, and commitment to Service Above Self to help more children and adults learn, grow, and succeed.

What will your club do to support education and literacy?

Share your club’s projects and photographs with District 7230 so that we can celebrate our members as People of Action, inspire other clubs, and demonstrate how Rotary is creating lasting impact throughout our District and around the world.

Rotary Resources

  • Rotary International — Supporting Education
  • Rotary International — Basic Education and Literacy project resources
  • Rotary Service Project Center
  • Literacy Rotary Action Group
  • Rotary International — Providing Clean Water
  • Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Rotary Action Group
  • WASH in Schools resources