An hour’s walk to school. Under a tattered uniform, notebooks that simply dissolve during the rainy season. Disappear.

Education is not just learning to read and write. It’s the only lifeline you can grab when fate has been pulling you down since birth. It’s the promise that your story doesn’t have to be the same as your parents’. The parents of 9-year-old Aimable never had much, but cancer took everything from them. How can you secure a child’s future when survival in the present is almost impossible?

Aimable was left alone with his older siblings in a mud hut and often went to bed hungry. The chance for a future slipped through his fingers like words from a wet notebook.

Now he’s with us, at the hospice. He has a roof over his head and a full plate. But most importantly—he has been given a new chance thanks to you. We thank everyone who has already joined our fundraiser and funded a school kit. Because of you, children like Cyrille no longer have to carry books in a plastic bag that tears over a puddle. Because of you, Shalom, who recently didn’t know if he’d have enough to eat, will soon receive his first, long-dreamed-of backpack.

Let’s not allow the next generation of children to go to school with books tied with string or ashamed of missing notebooks. Every school kit is a promise that the future can be better than the past.

Visit GoodWorks 24/7 and give a child the chance for a wonderful start at school. It could be a complete set for a first grader, a sturdy backpack, a math slate, or simple pencils—everything matters when it supports the big dream of a small human being.