Thirty years ago this month, I moved to Nicaragua. I’d graduated from college and accepted a job as an English teacher in a rural high school.

Nicaragua had been devastated by a civil war—one our own government helped finance. But the family that hosted me, as part of a sister-city project with the United States, greeted me with open arms.

The year I spent in Central America remains one of the best of my life. It was also one of the most transformative.

Like most teachers, I learned at least as much as I taught. One story has haunted me ever since.

I asked my students what they wanted to do when they grew up. They filled dozens of pages with their imagination.

But one student began his answer in a different way. “This is what I want to do if I grow up,” he wrote.

Not when, but if.

Growing up was no sure thing in Nicaragua at the time. It’s still not—not only in Central America, but for too many children in the U.S. and around the world.

We can change that fact. Thirty years later, I’ve never stopped trying.

Andrew Romanoff