In Burkina Faso, The Sonder Project is sponsoring 56 students across 9 schools through the Education Is Power program, with 86% being girls. All of these students have faced severe financial hardship and structural barriers to attending school. Yet despite only launching our sponsorship program in Burkina Faso in 2022, we have observed incredible growth in our students, exuding more confidence, enthusiasm, and ambition for their future. And their emotional reactions to receiving messages of encouragement from their student sponsors speaks volumes about how transformative the ‘Education Is Power’ program has been in their lives. On our first annual ‘Day of Encouragement’ in Burkina Faso, we relayed motivating personal messages to our Power students from their sponsors. The Power students felt incredibly special reading these messages, translated in French, with a combination of joy, pride, and gratitude. And they told us they felt a truly stronger connection with their sponsor...