Pay it forward, a highly recommended movie. It tells the story of a child with a difficult family story, who makes a project at school which consists on forming a chain of favours. He had to help three people with something important in their lives; each of those people had to help three others and so on.

The other day, reflecting on KUBUKA’s journey during 2017, I was moved thinking about the chain of favours that is being created little by little worldwide, traveling between continents, crossing oceans, big cities and small villages, in which many people participate. The idea has gone beyond a film and had become real, and KUBUKA is part of that reality.

I don’t know how, or where, or who, or when this chain started, but I know that it is now formed by many roads, each of which has many links that cross and intermingle to continue to make it bigger.

Many people, with their day-to-day actions are a part of this wonderful human invention. Those who, with their job, help others to overcome addictions, or spend time with disabled people to make their mornings more entertaining; those who make donations of money, time or effort and much more.

Let’s start from a hypothetical beginning to understand it better. Alex is a spaniard who founded an NGO called Coni. When his project began, he received the Marisol de Torres award in Madrid, and he wanted to transfer what he had received to Guatemala and open a school with it. Thus, he would give many children the opportunity to receive a decent education.

These children, privileged in their environment, are being educated in cooperation, becoming aware of the help needed around them and the need to distribute what they have. Therefore, in the future, they will make sure that their link is not the last one. They will help in their village, they will make their country grow and they will be able to give their children a good education, as well as those children who can not afford it.

Surely, Marisol was not the first link, but was instilled in solidarity by her parents, and she passed it on to her daughters, brothers, friends and strangers. After that, her close family and friends, decided to be a part of the chain instead of standing idly by, and distribute what they had received, and offer prizes to different NGOs, which were the next link.

In turn, Alex, when KUBUKA began to take its first steps, helped us by giving us advice from his experience, to develop and to know how to deal with different situations. Thanks to him, KUBUKA has been able to participate in the chain carrying out new projects. And thanks to these new projects, many Zambian and Kenyan people will be empowered to get out of the poverty line.

Thus, the children of all of these people will have an education and, like the children of Guatemala, will not allow the chain to be broken in the future.

The chain widens and created more and more paths!

And this is a mere example within a leg of one of the many chains of favours that exist today in the world.

Surely, this chain of favours had begun much earlier.

Surely, this is not the only chain of favours that exists in the world.

Surely, one day, some of the links of this chain will stumble with those of a different one and merge their strengths to reach more corners in the world.

And so, little by little, with the small actions of each person involved in the chain, we will achieve that someones’ place of birth or skin colour doesn’t dictate the opportinities that person has in life.