Nepal is a destination that, once experienced, leaves visitors forever transformed in some way, great or small. For Dr. Antonia Neubauer, a small idea that emerged during a Himalayan trek has taken root in the form of a sustainable rural development model that’s breathing self-respect and self-reliance into communities throughout this remote corner of the world.

On a trek in the late 1980s, Dr. Neubauer asked her Nepali guide what he wished most for his home village. “A library,” he replied. Though his definition of a library was a place to receive and read newspapers, Dr. Neubauer’s mind brimmed with the possibilities that a true library – filled with Nepali books and periodicals for all ages – held for rural Nepal.

READ was launched in 1991 as the non-profit arm of Myths and Mountains, a cultural travel company founded by Dr. Neubauer in the 1980s. The organization – headquartered in Incline Village, Nevada – is registered as a 501(c)(3) corporation in the U.S. and as an International Non-Government Organization (INGO) in Nepal.