Meet Tito. A Grade 8 pupil from Kitui who has not reported to school since January. At an age when most children are thinking about books and dreams, Tito is thinking about survival. He has become a parent to his four younger siblings.

With their mother often absent and unwell, Tito is the one who hustles every day to put food on the table. He fetches and sells water, collects plastics, and sometimes sells household items just to keep his siblings alive.

They sleep on the floor because they have no mattress. On the hardest days, when there is nothing left to sell and no money to bring home, Tito boils water, adds salt, and that becomes their only meal.

He has never met his father. In fact, he was told he was rejected just two days after birth. Life has only gotten heavier since then, as he watches the cycle repeat itself in his family, leaving him to carry responsibilities far beyond his years.

Yet, even in all this pain, Tito still holds onto a dream.

His greatest wish is to go back to school. To learn. To build a future. To one day change the life he and his siblings are living. No child should have to choose between education and survival.