Days ago, maybe weeks, Sonja and I walked home from an event I can’t remember. It was hot. We were tired, as we have been recently. I turned to her and said, “in a few weeks, 7 kids will be starting university.” She looked at me and nodded. We smiled at each other. “We should probably take a moment to be grateful for that,” I added.
We began Beautiful Response to send six kids to school: Hannifah, Arnold, Janet, Teddy, Victoria, and Hassifah. We heard their stories and we heard that if they didn’t start going to school soon, the future in which they go to university would not be possible. Next week, those six kids will walk onto university campuses and into their futures as university students.
Honestly, I almost missed it.
They made it. Each one of those six kids has a story that catches in your throat and makes you grit your teeth. But they woke up at 4:30am to study. They got through academic lows and passed through more trauma than I ever will. Then they passed their exams and got accepted to top university programs.
Nine years ago, we told them, “if you study and work hard, we’ll figure out how to pay for it.” And we came back to the states and said to you, “there are these kids, and if you help us pay for it, we know they will make us proud.”
And here we are, nine years later. Proud. So proud.
They made it. We made it. One of those students, Hannifah is going to study finance and get a degree that will help her get a job. But more than that, she is proud of herself. The kids are so proud of themselves. They now see a future they once couldn’t and they know that they can go and get it.
