Asia’s Free Digital Library Comes to Pakistan

Let’s Read!, The Asia Foundation’s free digital library, was launched in Pakistan in July, 2018 with the very first Urdu translation event. Access to quality books can be limited, especially in remote and turbulent areas. The Asia Foundation is scaling Let’s Read! to 8,000 quality titles in 40 local languages across Asia, dramatically reducing barriers of availability and cost, and increasing the pool of trained writers and illustrators who can produce children’s stories in local languages. Since the 1950s, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program has provided more than three million books to Pakistani students, marginalized groups and nonprofit organizations. In 2017, we started a new partnership with the Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Department of Sindh Province to provide materials to education departments and institutions in Sindh and Balochistan.