Travelling around the world with his family. Visiting 19 countries in 9 months. Feeling a bit like a tourist, a bit like an explorer, a bit like one of the locals and then volunteering in a country far away from his home in search for the fulfillment of one idea. That he could give the children from developing countries – the world by making it possible for them to read about it and then teach them to travel by reading.
This is David Risher, the founder of Worldreader, the NGO that takes him all over the world, bringing to children the tales and dreams of so many authors by making use of the e-reader technology.
We had the pleasure of interviewing him and we discovered not only a wonderful person, but a person who turned his passion for reading and travelling into a way of making our world a better place, book by book.
And here’s David Risher in his own words:
Was there a special event in your life that led you to found Worldreader?
“My family and I spent 2009 traveling around the world. We visited 19 countries in 9 months, from China to New Zealand to Indonesia to Jordan to Bolivia. In some countries we were just tourists, but in others we were true explorers, working, volunteering, and often living with local families or in local houses. We even spent a month living in people’s basements in New Zealand, helping on sheep farms!
Visiting a girls’ orphanage in Gualyquill, Ecuador named Perpetuo Socorro had a profound impact on me. At the end of a long day, we cane across a locked-up building, which turned out to be the orphanage’s library. The girls had completely lost interest in the books there. Meanwhile, we had been traveling with two Kindle e-readers for our two daughters to use for school and pleasure reading, which allow a person to download any book in 60 seconds. Reflecting on how much reading has meant to me, and thinking about the opportunity to use e-readers to deliver books to the developing world got me very excited… and when I returned to Barcelona and got together with my co-founder Colin McElwee, Worldreader was born!”
If you could write a book about your trips and your life as a traveler, what would its title be?
“Instead of writing a book, we created a website about our around-the-world travels! It’s called 365pictures.net, and it has a single picture from each day of our world trip. Creating it was wonderful: at the end of each day, our family would get together and vote on the most interesting picture of the last 24 hours.
There aren’t many people who travel to visit orphanages or volunteer around the world, how come you decided to do exactly this?
Every year I spend a week traveling with a group of guys I’ve known for years, usually doing something a bit extreme. We’ve been lucky enough that we can choose from a pretty wide range of activities, from mountain biking in Sun Valley, Idaho, to skiing in the alps to bicycling in Croatia. A few years ago we spent a week cycling through Patagonia, and during a particularly steep bit of mountain biking I managed to fall off my bike and break my collar bone and two ribs… and it was only thanks to my helmet that I didn’t crack open my skull. An experience like that reminds you that life can change very quickly, and that I’ve been very lucky! A trip around the world, volunteering and exploring, seemed like a great way to recognize that luck and give something back in the process.”
What is a pleasure trip for you?
“That’s easy: a pleasure trip is one I take with my wife and two daughters. It doesn’t have to be far away: even two hours driving up the coast can be a pleasure trip if I take it with my family.”
What is the most important thing you’ve learned traveling?
“The hardest part about traveling is deciding to do it— there’s always something else to do. So pick up your calendar, find a week sometime in the far-away future, and decide you’re going to take a trip to someplace you’ve always dreamed about. You’ll never regret it.”
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