Some stories are just worth revisiting. Take our story from Malawi today by contributor Xanthe Scharff. It grew out of a journey that started in 2005. Xanthe was working in Malawi, and the Monitor asked if she could write a piece that put a human face to a widely used statistic about extreme poverty: the number of people who lived on less than $1 a day. Monitor readers responded, offering support and helping to change the trajectory of many girls in Malawi and that of Xanthe herself.

Twenty years later, after a period in which Xanthe founded the organization Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa (AGE Africa) and then handed it to others, Xanthe realized it was time to plumb more deeply the meaning of everything she and others had built.

“Change comes back to, ‘How can we understand one another?’” she says.

On her return, Xanthe saw the power of a word she thinks about often: agency. She saw it when she renewed old friendships and made new ones. It was in the gratitude of people who saw her presence as connection to a larger world. It was in the pride AGE Africa girls radiated, and in the joy that coexisted with their burdens. And it was in the honesty: “What made me feel best was that I was told it was good I’d left, making more space for Malawian women to take up leadership,” she says.

“Our opportunity is that we can kick open some doors through our access to resources and get it to girls who are going to power change.”