Sometime between 2010 and 2013, when I was in Grade Three in Kenya, a shoe drive brought shoes to my primary school. I remember the shoes, or at least the idea of them. I cannot tell you exactly who organized the donation, how many children received shoes, or what became of the initiative afterward.
What I remember is that the shoes came, and then what followed was discrimination. The shoes were branded TOMS on the back, and that’s how they were known. For a while, wearing “TOMS” became associated with extreme poverty. We were already living in poverty; the shoe donation just made it visible and stigmatized.
Years later, I reflect on the experience differently. Not because the shoes were unimportant — a good pair of shoes offers comfort, dignity, and protection. For a child in need, receiving them matters. In rural Mumias East around 2011, coincidentally, those shoes were a direct response to a jiggers infestation. However, five years after the shoes wore out, the jiggers returned. School sanitation levels remained critical, and families still lacked the income to buy new shoes or preventive care.
So, what happens after the gift?
We may all have encountered some version of the familiar appeal: “Let’s send help to Africa.”
I reckon it is often born out of genuine compassion. When people are hungry, food matters. When families are displaced, shelter matters. When children lack shoes, shoes matter. But there is a fundamental difference between responding to a crisis and building a future beyond it.
The measure of generosity should not be what we give today, but what we make possible tomorrow. Darren Walker champions this shift from the standard philanthropy to systemic justice in From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth, which I encountered as a Nonprofit Leadership Fellow at Davidson College in 2025.
For too long, international development has been framed around a donor and a recipient: one has resources, the other has needs. Success is measured by what changes hands—how many meals were distributed, how many shoes were given, how much money was raised. While these metrics show the scale of a response, they tell us nothing about whether people are better equipped to navigate their own futures.
This distinction is what has drawn me to Access to Success (A2S) over and over. Like many well-intentioned initiatives, A2S originally began by distributing shoes to children in Nigeria. It was a vital immediate response. But shoes alone do not solve the root causes of systemic poverty. From Kenya to Nigeria, the experiences of children growing up in poverty are no different. Families continue to face barriers that go beyond access to shoes. Without sustained investment in agency, household livelihoods, and choice, the conditions that make such interventions necessary can persist.
At A2S, our work begins with the conviction that every child is born with potential. Our responsibility is to create the conditions that allow that potential to flourish.
Moving from immediate charity to lasting development for us has meant looking beyond what someone lacks today and investing in their capacity to shape tomorrow. To unlock potential, we cannot just help young people fit into an existing economy—we must equip them to create economic opportunities for themselves and their communities.
Looking at the After School Academy, I see this shift in real time. We still serve daily nutritious meals to meet immediate physical needs—because a hungry child cannot focus on learning. We pair that daily support with a modern curriculum that prepares students for an ever-changing global market, alongside hands-on opportunities to develop leadership, engage with their communities, and build practical life skills. Meeting the immediate need creates stability; building skills creates the future. As children graduate from the After School Academy, they are provided with opportunities that either prepare them for the workforce or allow them to create the workforce for themselves and for others.
Every time I return to the memory of those shoes from my childhood, I see the complexity of intervention. I do not diminish the value of what was given to children back then, but I have come to appreciate the profound difference between helping someone take a single step and helping build a path along which they can keep moving.
While shoes matter, roads do far more. A road connects a student to a school, a young person to an employer, an entrepreneur to a market, and a community to its future. A road does not dictate the destination, nor does it guarantee a smooth journey. It just makes movement possible.
At A2S, we remain committed to meeting immediate needs while building pathways to lasting opportunity. We started by giving shoes, but we are building roads today. We seek to equip young people to turn their potential into lasting, self-sustained progress and futures filled with hope, reflecting God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11.
As we enter this giving season, I invite us to reflect on the shoes we have given, the shoes we have received, the roads built for us, and the roads we are helping build for others. What would it mean to give not only in ways that meet today’s needs, but also in ways that make tomorrow’s possibilities real?
