Annual Report 2024
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The Straight Path
David is 13 years old, and he already knows that next year he’ll make it into Romania’s Olympic boxing team.
Before every match, he puts on the same black gloves his grandmother bought him when he had just started boxing. That was years ago, but she had known he would love those sleek, black gloves from a boxing gear store. The fact that they were three sizes too big didn’t matter—she was simply overjoyed that her grandson, whom she had raised since birth, had taken to her favorite sport.
Now, at 13, David says they bring him luck in matches, and he has never found another pair he liked as much. Before each fight, after wrapping his hands, he kneels down and prays. It calms him. He barely feels nervous anymore. “To win, you have to focus only on what you need to do to win.”
David has been boxing since he was six, when his grandmother, Fănuța, found him a coach at a gym near Unirii. She had insisted on getting her “boy” into boxing after watching Leonard Doroftei on TV and falling in love with the sport.
She became a grandmother when her daughter was just 14. That’s why she says she makes no distinction—she sees David as her own son. She has given him everything she could, especially the guidance to stay in school and “become someone in life.” Life in Ferentari, the Bucharest’s neighborhood where they live, isn’t always easy. Many children lose their way due to poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to healthcare or quality education.
“I have good kids,” says Fănuța, 53, speaking about her daughter, David and his younger sister.
For David, boxing keeps him focused on becoming better because, as he puts it, “It’s very easy to fall into the wrong crowd when you grow up in a neighborhood like this. Boxing has helped me stay on the right path, along with the tutoring sessions from the Foundation and school itself. Without all these things, I’d just go to school, come home, throw my backpack aside, and be out all day until nightfall.”
In 2022, David’s teacher introduced his grandmother to Valentina Cardaș from UiPath Foundation, who was in the process of recruiting children for the Future Acceleration Program—an initiative designed to support children from disadvantaged communities in reaching their full potential. “With David, I saw not just an ambitious and curious child,” says Valentina, “but also a family that, despite its struggles, was fully committed to supporting his journey.”
When David joined the Future Acceleration Program, he had just started fifth grade. The online tutoring sessions in Math and English helped him adjust to middle school while keeping up with his rigorous training.
David’s mornings start early. At 6:30 AM, he wakes up. Breakfast is always the same: an omelet with ham and cheese. Then, he heads off to school. When he gets home, lunch is ready—his grandmother always makes sure there’s meat, served with a baked potato and either a green salad or a tomato salad. Twice a week, as part of the Future Acceleration Program, he attends Math and English tutoring. He finds seventh-grade geometry tough, but biology and geography come easy—he picks things up quickly in class.
Monday to Friday at 6 PM, he heads to a 90-minute boxing training session: 12 rounds on the punching bag, 50 minutes of continuous movement—feet shuffling back and forth, fists striking left and right. By the time he gets home, he’s exhausted, his arms and legs sore from the workout. His day ends with a glass of milk and whatever he can find in the fridge.
And the next day, he does it all over again.
David knew he was destined for competitive sports soon after he started boxing. “He loved it from the very beginning because, rain or shine, even during the pandemic, the two of us went to training every single day. How could you not want more?” his grandmother says with a laugh.
At first, he learned a lot from the older peers at the gym—watching them box and running alongside them on Saturday mornings in the park. He was just six years old, struggling to keep up because he had no endurance. “Running was incredibly hard for me, it felt almost impossible.”
Slowly but surely, the impossible became possible. He started competing in matches, where he learned to move faster and react quicker. Determined to improve, he turned to YouTube, studying the techniques of legendary boxers—Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Ryan Garcia, and Gervonta Davis. His favorite? Tyson. Although he doesn’t agree with his life choices, he finds his tactics “wow”: “usually, when his opponent is preparing to attack, he stays very, very, very relaxed—then, just before the other fighter strikes, he launches his attack first.”
In 2024, when David landed his first technical knockout, he felt it—this was his moment. Even his coach, who rarely gives praise—“to push me harder and harder,”—couldn’t hold back. He told him with enthusiasm: “Bravo, David, congratulations!” Sometimes, his parents are there in the gym to cheer him on. He’ll never forget the moment, right after winning a match by knockout, when he looked up at the stands and saw his little sister shouting his name.“That really moved me!” His grandmother, however, no longer attends his matches. Since developing heart problems, she feels like she just can’t handle watching him take hits. Even though she knows her grandson is a winner, her heart can’t take it.
David dreams of making it to Romania’s Olympic boxing team in 2025. In the spring of 2025, he will compete in the National Junior Championship, in the 56-kilogram category—a tournament he has been waiting for all these years. The competition is open only to boxers aged 13 and above, and if the national team coaches take notice of him during the Cup matches, he will be invited to join the squad.
For this dream, his training routine is changing. Beyond his evening training sessions, he will now add a morning workout before school. His focus will shift—less movement in the ring, more strategy, heavier punches. And endurance. To build that, he runs every week from his home in Ferentari to the park—5 to 6 kilometers. Once there, he does two full laps, followed by several minutes of fast-paced stair runs, before heading back home. Two hours of pure rhythm. He barely looks around—his mind is on his pace, his breathing, his goal. He knows that if he puts in the work, he’ll make it to the Olympic team. But beyond that dream, at just 13 years old, he’s already mature enough to see what this journey is giving him: “It keeps me on the straight path in life. I know what respect means. I know what education means.”
Possibility doesn’t mean grand, unattainable dreams. It starts with simple things: a safe path to school, a warm meal, someone who tells you that you can.
Written by over 60 children and young people, this poem gives voice to their thoughts about who they will become, the changes they imagine, and the inventions that could make the world a better place.
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