Documentary Review: “Tomorrow’s Hope: How Early Childhood Education Changes Lives”

“Tomorrow’s Hope” is a heartwarming and inspiring documentary that sheds light on the importance of early childhood education in breaking the cycle of poverty. 

The 45mins documentary film is directed by Thomas Morgan who takes us on a journey through the conception and realization of the Educare program. This is an innovative initiative that was set up in the early 90s, to provide preschool classrooms within low-income housing projects with the main focus of providing children in those projects with access to quality education right from the start. 

The Educare Early Education Center was initially called “The Beethoven Project” when it was started within ‘Forgotonia’ which is described in the documentary film as the ‘largest housing project in the world’ as of then.

The documentary also highlights the challenges faced by educators and parents in underprivileged communities, from lack of resources to the harsh realities of inner-city violence. Despite these obstacles, Educare and Start Early continue to provide hope and support to families, one step at a time.

The dedication and commitment of the educators are shown in this documentary film. Even in the face of the hardest adversities, they are resolute and with the help of the community, they have been able to be the change the people needed.

The program itself stresses the importance of family and parental involvement in children’s education, and let has been done over the years to ensure that this is sustained.

The film focuses particularly on Jamal, Crystal and Jalen who are success stories and graduates from the first Educare Class. They share with us the numerous obstacles and challenges they faced on a daily, But they have been able to pursue their dreams and aspirations and are now on the right to success and they can’t take the program they enjoy out of their success story. 

To many, graduating high school might seem like a mere feat. But to these three, it is a great achievement and a huge stride for them towards breaking the cycle of poverty that is prevalent for children living in the inner cities where drugs and violent crimes and a regular problem

But turning 18 and being able to graduate high school and not getting absolved into a life of crime and drugs is something worth celebrating.

The film uses the typical, interview approach with the subjects sharing their thoughts and feelings on camera. There are also accompanying visuals from as far back as the early 90s when the Educare program was started. We get to see how much the community has changed over the years. From housing projects being demolished and the community being plagued by drug dealing gang violence and poverty.

From the film, it is clear that the Educare program has been successful in many ways. Over the decades of its existence, many lives have been impacted either directly or indirectly by this and this would trickle down in many generations to come.

Tomorrow’s Hope is one of those films that reminds you that we are all capable of doing good in one small way or the other. And the motivation for us to do good should be the children, after all, they are tomorrow’s hope.

I would score this documentary film 4 out of 5 stars.