Stolen dreams

Last week I wrote about “How young people can fight corruption”. Today I would like to continue to continue focusing on the very young kids that need help. I saw an article published by Marko Kasic, the Founder and Managing Director of FundLife.org, who is a friend I have admired for many years about the successful work he is doing for very your people in the Philippines.

- Henry J. Schumacher

Allow me to share some of his views:

The world is facing an education crisis with staggering economic consequences. According to the World Bank, learning poverty—defined as the inability to read and understand a simple text by age ten—threatens to cost this generation of children over $21 trillion in lost lifetime earnings. For countries like the Philippines, where nine out of ten children cannot read at grade level, this isn’t just an education emergency. It’s a long-term economic one.

But there’s a second, quieter crisis compounding it: digital exclusion. In communities where families lack internet access or even a basic device, children are locked out of the very tools that now define opportunity. They are not just missing homework. They are being excluded from the future itself.

The Myth of Access

For years, solutions have been framed as “bridging the digital divide” by distributing laptops or wiring classrooms.

But access alone is not enough. Devices don’t teach children—people do. Without mentorship, technology risks reinforcing inequality: students with support thrive, while those without it fall further behind.