Organizational Issues From the Responsibility Project (Liberty

Organizational Issues from the Responsibility Project (Liberty Mutual)

The video chosen from the Responsibility Project was "Women in the World: Erin Ganju." Her story is meaningful for a number of reasons that will be reviewed in this paper. Ganju is the CEO of "Room to Read," an organization that seeks to help educate children (through reading and other skills) in order that today's children can grow up with the power to change the world for the better.

Women in the World: Erin Ganju -- What are the Important Issues? Ganju begins her video by explaining how "passionate" her parents were -- when she was just a child -- about sharing information with her regarding different cultures. A sense of "wanderlust" was "instilled" in her, Ganju explains. Importantly, Ganju's parents not only took their daughter to many interesting places, but the family read about each place they visited, encouraging both reading skills and knowledge of other cultures.

"Exploring the world through books," Ganju mentioned, was a way to instill a fascination within her to know more about people and places that are foreign to most American children. Now, as CEO and co-founder of Room to Read, Ganju speaks in humanitarian and ethical terms when she says that "…every child, no matter where they're born, should have great education in their own community."

Backing up their beliefs, Room to Read has established more than 13,000 libraries in schools all over the world, Ganju explains. Room to Read has published "wonderful children's books" in the language that is used in the myriad countries in which the organization has founded libraries. Ganju is clearly a highly enthusiastic CEO as she expresses the joy she receives when she sees children dashing towards the libraries in the various schools that Room to Read has helped.

What role to external social pressures play in influencing organizational ethics? The ethical approach to helping children learn to read with proficiency is not just due to the good will of the women and men who work with Room to Read. There is a huge achievement gap in schools today; in fact a peer-reviewed article in the journal Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools reports that between 2000 and 2003, "…up to 52% of all students who were identified as having a learning disability in reading" had already been diagnosed as having a "speech-language impairment" (Foster, et al., 2007, p. 173). Clearly there is social pressure on teachers, schools, administrators and activists like Ganju to help children learn to read and to help them become informed about the world and its cultures.

Foster explains that a "body of evidence" backs the belief that "…many students enter school significantly behind their more advantages and typically developing peers… [and over time] the academic performance gap widens" (Foster, p. 173). Ethics, after all, isn't just about being honest and forthright in the corporate world, or about leaders in politics following the rules; ethics relates to moral principles, and ethics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the values pertaining to human behaviors. Hence, offering children reading skills that give them the tools to become active participants in their cultures is a highly ethical thing to do.

How might these issues be relevant to organizational and personal decisions? In the video with Ganju her daughter said she wanted to be a teacher after another little girl at a school said the same thing. How can children possibly be expected to make good decisions about their futures -- or about the fragile planet they live on -- if they can't read with proficiency? This is one of the main points of the Ganju video. Organizations need to be established to help education children throughout the whole world. In order for children to make good decisions they must be able to read and write. "Education brings hope," Ganju explains, which is the main thrust of Room to Read. A "better world" will emerge when children are "empowered" and "educated" in order to become fully productive citizens, Ganju asserts. UNESCO reports that "two out of three children in Africa are left out of secondary schools," and "girls face the greatest barriers" (Deen, 2011).

Starting an organization like Room to Read is as relevant as one can get when addressing the ethics of reading as it applies to education and as education applies to the making of a better world through children's empowerment.