During a lecture at Askoli Middle School, a young student asked Ghot Ali:
"Why are our children so far behind in education?"
Ghot Ali paused for a moment and then gave an answer that captured centuries of suffering in just a few words:
"Poverty, poverty, poverty, and poverty!"
These four words are like four walls that imprison the dreams of our children.
They are chains that not only tie their feet but also lock their minds.
Poverty is not just the absence of money — it is a deep darkness that kills hope in the heart, ideas in the mind, and dreams in the eyes.
Here, children are crushed by life’s hardships before they can even enter the world of learning.
Books, pens, schoolbags — for them, these are just distant dreams.
When the stomach is empty, the body is uncovered, shoes are broken, and there’s no roof above — children don’t think about education, business, skills, or progress.
Because poverty doesn’t only take away education — it also takes away the right to think.
Children here don’t even consider starting a business —
because their minds have no space left to dream.
They only wonder whether there will be food tonight, if their mother will get medicine, or whether they’ll find work tomorrow.
When a child asks, "What will I be when I grow up?"
Poverty immediately replies:
"Exactly what your father did."
A guide’s son becomes a guide.
A leader’s son becomes a leader.
A laborer’s son becomes a laborer.
And the child of the man who follows mules up the mountains — follows the same mules when he grows up.
The word “business” is foreign to him —
no one ever explained it, showed it, or gave him a chance.
No one says:
"Son, think differently, do something new!"
Because here, even having new thoughts is a luxury only available to those who sleep with full stomachs.
When a child works hard every day, but the reward is only two meals —
he fights to survive, not to improve his life.
Here, poverty is passed down from one generation to the next.
And when two poor people marry — as the writer Mushtaq Yusufi once said:
"They create eight more poor people."
And so poverty doesn't destroy just one person — it devours a whole nation.
But maybe...
If one bright-eyed child breaks those chains,
If a hungry mother still hands her child a book,
If a teacher, even without a salary, keeps showing his students how to dream —
Then maybe, that child will one day start a business, build companies, and offer jobs.
Because defeating poverty doesn't only need money — it needs courage, knowledge, and dreams.
And only those who still hold on to hope, even after losing everything, can truly dream