Quote by Gabriela Mistral: “The future of the children is always today. Tomorrow will be too late.”

Children's needs — for education, safety, love, and opportunity — cannot be deferred. Waiting until 'later' to care for them means the window has already closed. This is an urgent reminder that what we do for the young must happen now, not in some imagined future.

Mistral published Desolación in 1922 while working as a schoolteacher and education reformer in Chile. Latin American nations were expanding public education systems, often underfunded and inaccessible to rural and indigenous children, and Mistral was a passionate advocate for the dignity of children from poor communities.

Chilean poet and diplomat, the first Latin American author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1945. Her poetry explored themes of love, loss, childhood, and maternal devotion, and she was a passionate advocate for education and children's rights across Latin America.