Through perseverance, kindness, community, and ever lasting hope the poorest people in Africa are beginning to see the chance for a new tomorrow. Healthcare is being addressed. Self-esteem is slowly being built again.

Imagine having to look your child in the eye, as blood flows down their face from the sickness of Malaria, trying to tell them that everything is going to be ok, when you know in reality that a $3 medication, which will save their life, is inaccessible because you have no resources.

Amazingly, through programs like the Millennium Villages this reality is slowly fading away. The power of love has taken a simple idea and connected it throughout hundreds of villages across the continent of Africa.

The United Nations started the Millennium Project with a simple and unstated point. Human beings have an incredible inherent value in their spirits and in their hearts. There is something remarkably unique about the human soul. Something that passes all understanding and can only be expressed through the smile in a child's eyes or the joyous laughter of a mother seeing their first born dance with inhibition.

Debates will continue, arguments will always exist, the simple truth comes down to the fact that if even one single human soul is given the chance to rise above the unacceptable fate of extreme poverty then this pursuit of life, truth, and hope is worth every ounce of energy. This is the story of us all and the joy, redemption, love, sacrifice, heartache, and incredible spirit, which defines our existence.