We asked ONE members for submissions to The Big Read book — a collection of stories from people around the world supporting education for everyone. Although only one member story will be published in the book, the runner-up submissions, including the one below from Maureen Rooney of Annandale, NJ, were so good that we wanted to share them here.

You can show your support for The Big Read and help ensure a pathway out of poverty for children around the world. Endorse the book by adding your signature here.

Thanks for reading!

-Emily Stivers

Education Empowers

Maureen Rooney
Annandale, NJ

On March 11, 2005, I suffered a severe brain injury caused by a ruptured brain aneurysm. I was in a coma for three days at Jefferson Neuroscience Hospital in Philadelphia, and almost died. I spent two weeks at Jefferson and two additional months in rehabilitation facilities.

When I recovered to a moderate brain injury, I was searching for a cause I could advocate for and wholeheartedly believe in. I needed a cause that champions those in need and empowers those who have little. That is when I learned about ONE and its network of grassroots activists. Through ONE.org, I would be able to affect public and world policy for the better, empower those who dared dream of hope, and help educate those who yearn to read, write and to communicate.

ONE rekindled my latent idealism and lifted me from my own catastrophic situation by helping me to put my brain injury into proper perspective. Fortunately, at the time of my illness I was living and working in Philadelphia, a center of excellence for neuroscience. Because my brother and sister-in-law became my advocates, my life was saved. I needed to do something with my life that would validate their belief in me.

Before my brain injury, I had an established career in the publishing industry as a sales executive. I have a B.A. in English from William Paterson University. During my sales career, I traveled all over the world and toured many of the countries I read about as a student. My dreams were to travel the world and to become an author. I always believed I had stories to share with the world. I was well-traveled and well-read, but I was not yet a writer.

Through sales I became a strong communicator. Through ONE, I used my persuasive abilities and communication skills to lobby my legislators and inform the media of the plight of those battling extreme poverty, disease and illiteracy. I have been an involved and motivated member of ONE.org since 2006.

I have lobbied my senators, congressional representatives and the 2008 Presidential candidates with phone calls, emails and letters. I have written to New Jersey’s highest circulating newspapers. I have attended and participated in meet ups with my Congressional representative. I have written to Secretary of State Clinton about the key issues of global poverty and disease and the need to intervene in crises such as those in Zimbabwe. I proudly sign every ONE.org petition I receive.

I realized that without education, I would have been powerless to influence change. Joining ONE.org continued my education. It reminded me that those who live and are educated in the non-industrial world critically need the tools and building blocks to improve their situation.

The most important advantage we can give to one another is a good education. Education provides one with choices gives us confidence and makes all things possible. Those who can read and write find a new world through books, can understand training and technical manuals, and are informed by newspapers and magazines and the information on the Internet. With a good basic education, one can expand one’s horizons to comprehend math and the sciences. That leads to understanding how things work, answers many questions and provides a method to pass on information to future generations.

When one is able to read, one can understand the history of one’s family, one’s birthplace, one’s country and the world at large. That is why universal education and adequate funding are critical. I attended university because I received a New Jersey state scholarship. That scholarship shaped my life. In 2009, I have begun to write the first of what I believe will be many books. At long last, I am living my dream.

My first book is the story of my father, and the love he shared with my mother. Edward Rooney was educated in a one-room schoolhouse in the Northern Ireland of the 1920s-1930s. My father joined the Royal Navy before World War II and remained a sailor until 1945. He helped to save the world. My father had the most curious, inquisitive, remarkable mind. His joys in life were my mother, his family, politics, following world events and reading books. He was the single most successful person I have ever known. He owned his own home, raised a fine family and positively influenced all of those whose lives he touched. His three children all graduated from college. Edward Rooney was always grateful to his parents for educating him, his three sisters and eight brothers.

I am proud to say my brain has recovered to the extent this year that I will share my father’s story with the world. My father achieved a great deal and died, in 2006, one of the most contented men who ever lived. While on port duty in Johannesburg, he refused to enforce the township curfews mandated by the apartheid regime, and was thrown in the brig. When the war in Iraq began, he spoke of his time in Iraq, remarking on what fine, compassionate people he had met while serving in Basra.

My father’s education continued throughout his life, honed by his travels during WWII, the people he met and the information he digested reading his local, city and national newspapers daily. Like our great President Abraham Lincoln, my father began his lifelong education in a one-room schoolhouse. Like Lincoln, my father independently pursued knowledge his entire life. Edward Rooney was the most widely read and best-informed person I have ever known. A good education is something my father believed all children should have. My father was a gunner on the HMS Repulse.

His battle cruiser the Repulse was sunk on December 10, 1941 when she set sail to save Singapore. Edward Rooney did his duty, lived his life with compassion and passionately believed the world should be a better place. A guarantee of quality basic education to the disenfranchised would have brought him joy and made him smile.