In our business, we often get enquiries from people who think we deal in second-hand literary books. At TrailBlazer Finance, we actually buy, sell and lend against trail books – which are not even close to story books. But these mistaken phone calls to our office became the catalyst for us to support a charity which is doing life-changing work for people who often can’t even spell B-O-O-K.

A few years ago, our Managing Director Jeff Zulman read John Woods’ remarkable book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children. Jeff was inspired by how one person who recognised the power of words went on to establish Room to Read, a non-profit organisation focused on girls’ education and children’s literacy in Africa and Asia.

We later discovered that one of Room to Read’s annual fundraisers was a long trail walk in Sydney. There are too many coincidences here, Jeff thought to himself. We make money from books – albeit not literary ones – so why don’t we help others to read, write and benefit from books. In that moment, TrailBlazer Finance’s support for Room to Read was born.

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, over 750 million people worldwide are illiterate. Two-thirds of them are women and girls. “World change,” says Room to Read, “starts with educated children.”They’re right: educating girls is much more than a gender equality issue.

As Damon Gameau’s recent documentary ‘2040’ makes clear, educating girls is a vital weapon in the battle against climate change. Why? Because empowering and educating women and girls means they are more likely to marry later and have less children, which leads to a lower population and less pressure on resources. In a recent Sydney Morning Herald article, Elizabeth Farrelly wrote that the film 2040’s “most surprising [moment] is the thought that the sixth most effective weapon (of a hundred) against climate change is educating girls…educating girls is worth 105 gigatons of Co2 due to its effect on fertility, population growth and land management.”

So now, your books – your trail books – are helping those less privileged than us to learn to read and delight in the power of words and literary books.We donated 100% of the proceeds from our recent webinar for mortgage brokers to Room to Read. This impressive organisation – which to date, has benefitted 16.8 million children and their communities – means that when you take a loan from TrailBlazer Finance, you’re also giving back: helping to combat the scourge of children’s illiteracy, to educate underprivileged girls and even to fight against climate change. Your trail book is valuable in more ways than you might have imagined.