One Story • One Step • One Question. Three minutes.
One Story
She’d been at her project in northern Thailand for less than a week when she counted the footballs: five, all flat, kicked across a stone playground until even the fluff gave up. A wiry little thing, football-mad since she was small, and this was the first thing that stopped her in her tracks.
On her next day off, she hitched a ride into the nearest city, bought a ball, and hitched back before dark. That is not something I would have approved of at all. She did it anyway.
The kids at her project didn’t wait for her to unpack. Ball out of the bag, straight onto the stone, screaming at every kick that actually rolled where it was aimed.
She called a community center back home in the UK. Two weeks later, two more balls arrived. When she got home, she set up a small charity to raise funds to send footballs to the projects in northern Thailand she had come into contact with. Her goal was to send 50. Two years in, she’d sent 113.
The charity doesn’t exist anymore. She finished uni. Became a teacher. Got married. Started a family.
One Step
Wherever you land — a school in northern Thailand, a clinic in rural Kenya, a homestay in provincial Argentina — give yourself two weeks before you try to fix anything. Not because you shouldn't act. Because what you’ll end up fixing is rarely the thing you notice on day one. Spend those two weeks counting instead: what's broken, what's missing, what people ask for twice. Somewhere in that list is a five-football problem — small, obvious once you see it, and entirely within your reach to solve before you’re finished. It’s a great opportunity to “leave it better than you found it.”
One Question
How long have you been counting the same five footballs?
— Randy
I’ve spent fifty years in international education and cultural exchange — a front-row seat to people changing careers, countries, and lives. If you’re putting together a panel, a podcast, or a story and want a voice from the field, just reply. Replies come straight to me, and I read every one.