In this interview, host Sheela Sethuraman and Beulah Thubadoo, founder of Everyone's Reading in Africa, discuss Beulah's decades long work to promote adult literacy in South Africa and the rest of the world.

Everyone's Reading in Africa began as the Easy Reading for Adults program at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. While she and the organization produced impressive results, she established ERA as an independent organization in 1995. Since then, ERA has focused on increasing the availability of reading material for adults learning to read and increasing governmental aid to adult literacy programs.

ERA has done a number of things to make reading material more available to adults learning to read. In order to create more content suitable for people with adult level intelligence and maturity but with limited reading skills, they hold writing contests for such material. They created a labeling system that makes it easy to find appropriate books without having to ask librarians and show limited literacy. They have also done research on subject tastes, both from library patronage and by observing behavior at bookstands in public places.

Beulah also shares lessons learned, relevant to anyone interested in social entrepreneurship. On the personal side, she recommends taking time for yourself to relax and refuel in order to avoid burning out. For organizations, she warns not to let the pursuit of fundraising overshadow the main vision, but rather see how far you can get on your own and with like-minded partners. A common way of doing this is by having for-profit activities that generate funds for the non-profit activities. ERA does this by selling high quality, illustrated books at market rates to fund the distribution of inexpensive books to people that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it.