Giving Tuesday Now is being celebrated worldwide on May 5th  as a day of unity and charity in response to the COVID19 pandemic.  The COVID19 virus is wreaking havoc in many places, in advanced societies and developing nations.  It has spread fear and taken lives.  It doesn’t discriminate.

The conditions most of us in the U.S. face are daunting enough.  Over 1,000,000 cases of the virus, over 60,000 deaths, furloughed from work or lost our job, ordered to stay at home, forced to practice social distancing, don masks, use hand sanitizer, and wash our hands rigorously and repeatedly with soap and water throughout the day.  It’s downright uncomfortable, unfamiliar, awkward and scary to hear stories from the front lines.  Lives are being lost, healthcare workers are mentally and physically exhausted.  The economy is limping at best.  It’s bad.  Possibly as bad as our generation has ever had it. 

But, we’re in the richest and most powerful nation on Earth.  What if you lost your job and were ordered to stay home, but no one in your community has running water, soap, hand sanitizer or masks?  What if you’re a student from a humble background, and the only meal you received each day was provided at school?  What if you’re orphaned or your single parent has no means to take care of you much less themselves and your three siblings?  Or, you have no family to return to when school shuts down? 

As if a deadly virus weren’t enough. 

This is life for most of our African students.  Daily life is challenge enough without a pandemic. 

It would be so easy to give up.  But our kids strive harder and without any of the personal protections we require here.  What keeps them going? 

 Hope.

Hope for a better day.  A better life ahead.  The endless possibilities.  We deliver hope through education in a region where over 97 million youth are out of school in the best of times.  In countries where a deadly pandemic is not a novel occurrence, we urge you to join us in bringing out the best for the least of these.

During #GivingTuesdayNow, we hope you’ll join us in spreading hope and opportunity to African children who may never know soap or running water.