For years his future began at 4:00 in the morning, when many were still sleeping and he went up on a truck to collect waste.
A long time later, Rehan Staton would cross the corridors of Harvard Law School.
But telling his story as a simple personal climb would mean losing the most important part.
Because Rehan didn't come to Harvard alone.
After graduation, while his family faced economic difficulties, he found work in a waste collection company. Days were heavy, shifts began before dawn and work required continuous physical effort.
Just among those trucks, however, something happened that would change the direction of his life.
The co-workers began to watch that boy and convince himself that he could do anything else.
Some of them knew from personal experience what it meant to have few possibilities. There were also men who had problems with justice and knew how difficult it was to change the way when no one gives you an opportunity.
With Rehan they did exactly the opposite.
They encouraged him.
They told him to study, to try, not to consider that job as the limit of his own possibilities.
Rehan listened to them.
He enrolled at university without quitting work. It often meant starting the day around 4:00 a.m., completing the shift and then switching to classes, books and exams.
This, however, would not have been enough without another sacrifice.
Your brother Reggie's.
When economic difficulties continued to weigh on the family, Reggie left the university and began working. His choice also allowed Rehan to continue his studies.
Behind each examination passed, therefore, there was not only the determination of a student.
There were a father who worked to support the family, a brother who had temporarily given up his path and a group of colleagues who had decided to believe in the abilities of a boy when Harvard was still far away.
After graduation, Rehan attempted a new leap.
He applied for admission to several law faculties.
Among the universities that opened his doors was Harvard.
The history of the former waste collector admitted to Harvard Law School quickly drew media attention.
But Rehan continued to indicate in his own history something different from the classic story of the man who made it alone.
He was talking about reciprocity.
The effect that a person can have when he decides to help another person without knowing where that gesture will come.
In 2023, as he approached the conclusion of his studies at Harvard, he decided to turn that idea into something concrete.
He organized a celebration dedicated to cleaning staff and campus service workers.
People who each day contributed to the functioning of the university, taking care of the spaces and performing essential tasks, but who rarely became protagonists of the ceremonies.
During the initiative funds were also collected to offer them gift vouchers.
Rehan also founded The Reciprocity Effect, a project dedicated to the recognition and support of essential workers who often stay away from the spotlight.
In the same year he finished his studies at Harvard Law School.
There was a difficult symmetry to ignore.
Years before they had been some waste collection workers to see something in him when almost no one else looked in that direction.
When he arrived at Harvard, Rehan chose to turn to other people who worked daily without being seen.
The most significant part of his path, perhaps, is not therefore in the distance between a garbage truck and Harvard.
It's in people who made it possible to cross it.
And in the fact that, once he arrived on the other side, Rehan Staton decided not to forget them.