“I have a backpack. I have friends. And I have a dream.”

Sometimes, just two letters from children in Lebanon are enough to change the way we view something ordinary. Tomorrow, school vacation begins here in Austria. For two children in Beirut, every school day is a gift.

“I have a backpack. I have friends. And I have a dream.” An 8-year-old boy from our school project in Beirut wrote this to us.

In a second letter , we read the words of an 11-year-old girl: “Sometimes I wish I could stay at school longer, because I feel free, heard, and valued there.”

The school year ends tomorrow in Austria. For many children, summer vacation is about to begin—and that’s wonderful.

However, these two letters remind us that school is not a given everywhere.

The boy recounts how he used to watch other children every morning as they walked to school with their backpacks. While they were allowed to go to school, he sold bread on the street or helped his mother at home. Today, he is a student himself. His biggest dream is to become a teacher one day, so that other children, too, can learn about their right to an education.

The girl lives in a small house with ten other family members. She writes that she feels free at school—that there she can learn, laugh with her friends, and just be a kid. And that sometimes she wishes she could stay even longer.

What moved us: Both children wrote the same thing independently of each other—just in different words.

School is her favorite place. Not because it’s easy. But because it offers opportunities. Because it opens doors. Because it’s a place where she is seen and where she is allowed to believe in her future.

Especially as the school year comes to a close, we’d like to say THANK YOU: Thank you to everyone who supports our school project. Thanks to you, children can not only go to school—they get to experience what school can truly mean.