“When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer to fight for justice and equality,” said the young girl from a school we build in Zimbabwe.
“I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I am in grade 6. I want to be a teacher because I want to help people so that they should become doctors and nurses,” said a girl from a school we built in Zambia.
What is the value of hope? These girls certainly have some don’t they.
As we visit many poverty-stricken countries, we see a great deal of hopelessness.
Sometimes, this leads to acceptance that nothing will change, which in turn can lead to resigned belief that every day will be a fight for survival, or it can turn into despair, to homelessness and to addiction.
The good news is that this can be changed for many children.
When girls are rescued from traffickers, from child marriage or from female genital mutilation, and are then placed into a loving refuge with access to education, they can start to dream again.
When street children are rescued from homelessness and placed into safe places, and when they can go to a good school, they can start to dream again.
Children whose only hope in life was foraging and subsistence farming with barely enough nutrition, who then get an opportunity to go to school, they can start to dream again.
When children are given hope again, even though they came from desperately poor communities, they start to aspire to be historians, business people, nurses, artists, bankers, pilots, doctors, police and teachers.
What strikes us about their dreams is that they are the same dreams that our children and their friends have. What is wonderful about these children’s dreams is that they are becoming achievable because their schools give them such a great opportunity.
When we build a classroom, it might last for many decades and help many children. If we estimate all lifetime costs associated with the classroom, the cost per child might be as little as £20.
So, what is the price of hope? It might be as little as £20 for some children.
Please consider supporting our work, as we continue to help children have hope for their future.
