Reading and writing is not just a privilege - it is a right that youth and adults both at domestically and internationally are living their lives without. From adults in America trying to learn English as a second language or young kids in the inner cities without access to books, to the impoverished communites in Latin American unable to read the native Spanish signs posted around their towns, to women in the Arab world with unequal access to literacy eduation - we cannot deny that literacy is essential and necessary for economic growth, social progress, and human dignity.