In Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, 10-year-old Brian is living about as typical a childhood as you’d expect of a boy his age. He's in Year 5. He attends school, and likes his lessons well enough - but he lives for the end of the school day, when the bell goes and he and his friends spill out onto the football pitch, chasing a ball under a pink evening sky until it's too dark to see.
That was until one day, in his classroom, Brian developed a high fever and aches, which soon became chronic pain. His parents, fearing malaria, took him to a local clinic. Then another. Then another.
Nothing worked. Each round of treatment managed the symptoms for a while, but never touched whatever was actually wrong - and Brian kept getting worse. The boy who used to run all the way home to reach the pitch before his friends was now struggling to stand.
At his lowest point, Brian weighed just 15kg - less than half the average weight of a boy his age, and closer to what would be expected of a four-year-old.
It wasn't until Brian reached a Kids Operating Room, installed in Kamuzu Central Hospital, that he finally got what years of clinics and short-term solutions hadn't given him: the surgical care he needed.
And it worked. Brian had been suffering from painful perforations in his stomach - a complication of tuberculosis, and his operation to treat them was a success. He could, after months and months of only ever getting worse, begin to think about getting better. It didn’t take long. Brian quickly began sitting upright, which soon became standing. Standing became walking. Walking became running. Brian spent much of the following year returning to the hospital for check-ups, each time amazing the staff who'd first met him weak, and in agony.
His mother put it simply: "It felt like he was near death for two years. We're just so grateful to the surgical team for not giving up on him."
A Kids Operating Room exists for exactly this reason. Because no parent should ever fear their child may be simply given up on.
Brian is back at school. Back playing football with his friends.
His surgery already feels a long way behind him.
And in front of him; a football, rolling quickly away beneath the pink evening sky. Beside him; a friend who, on this evening, is an opponent.
Brian puts his head down and runs.
He wants to reach it first.
A future where anything is possible
They’ll make it happen. Surgery made it possible.
