Whenever I come to the ground, I find myself expressing dreams we rarely allow ourselves to think about when we are back in HQ. Day-to-day, we are in execution mode; there is little time to dream. But, like in any company, we must also reserve time to dream, ideally big.
If you are doing good… do some more!
This year, I was pleased to find very few problems reported at the pre-school Santa Catarina. We had issues with the kitchen, now rebuilt, the bathrooms, now rebuilt, and even some staff, now mostly solved. I hoped, for once, that the day would be smooth. I let myself be immersed in the joy of the little ones, as the visits to the pre-schools always end up filing us with joy and kind of making me want to dance alongside them. I thanked the teachers and cooking staff for how well they were taking care of the children and how healthy and happy they looked, just as we hoped. Mission accomplished?
As our local partner, Father Arterio arrived, there was no time to rest on our laurels. He quickly laid out the next dream: we absolutely had to consider another room, so we could host 3, 4 and 5-year-olds in the school (currently we only have 2 classrooms). He said the local community had many children, and the parents kept asking for it. I am someone who takes feedback in the chin, and usually, I don’t need a lot of pampering, but I must say I felt a mix of fatigue and frustration. Not another request, he did not even say a small well done!
But, as the dust settled, I accepted this was not a complaint, but a dream, and not a new one. Now that we had solved the problems, it was time to aspire to new things! Noted.
Sponsoring Programme – The Parents Dream Too
Another big meeting we had was with about 30 mothers and grandmothers from the Sponsoring Programme in Chongoene. I was pleased so many of them intervened (even if my Changana is poor to non-existent), and mostly they thanked us for the program and how important it was in a warm, heartfelt way.
These conversations are meant to elicit suggestions or concerns the parents may have, and the mothers were also not short of a dream. We have had a closed technical classroom for a while, where we have sewing and culinary course materials. A few years back, we held courses there, but the interest from the community faded, and we closed it down. The mothers came to us to ask us to reignite these courses and give their children a chance to have an activity that could provide for some income, even if they did not make it to university (which most of them don’t).
With this one, I was not taken aback, but rather hopeful that this community has an interest in their children and recognises the need to give them a different path. To give them a path at all. That in itself showed progress in our work and intervention with the families. Naturally, it will be another fundraising and operational headache, but when a project comes from the community, we must listen.
An old dream
At the end of the day, it was my turn to bring up a dream, one I have personally carried for over 10 years, going on 15 perhaps. We have identified After-School Support to be a key pillar of our Sponsoring Program in order to enhance school attendance and grades. However, in the rural communities, the implementation of such a program has also presented challenges. In fact, we have not even tried, as we thought it was too hard.
Recently, however, with our pillars giving us clear indications on where we should go next, we allowed ourselves a moment to dream.
What if we could build a multi-purpose building that could host after-school support in the community, as well as other community events? What if the community would find us land and would contribute with their work? What if we could make it work?
Needless to say, I only had to say half a word and our field officer had already confirmed the full commitment from the local structure and that they were already in the process of finding a place. They had identified local teachers that we could hire and were ready to start. Once again, teamwork and local ownership in motion — changing children’s futures. This would be one building opening I would tear up at.
Dreaming big can’t be done every day. Often, when we are knee-deep in “getting things done”, it is tough to even conceive anything going above and beyond the current projects we are already dealing with. And some days, I don’t even believe I can get those done. But when the team runs smoothly and the community stands strong, new possibilities emerge. And maybe, just for one day, we can allow ourselves to dream a little bigger.
Bigger.