How ‘A Small Act’ changed the lives of hundreds

What you need to know:

  • Hilde grew up in Sweden, learned the language and became a teacher. When she was asked by a small Swedish charity to pay for the education of a poor boy in Kenya, she thought this was just “a small act”
  • She committed to £8 a month to meet primary and secondary fees for clever young Chris Mburu from Mitahato village, Kiambu district, north of Nairobi
  • That might have been the end of the story except that Chris grew up to be a top UN lawyer (courtesy of the University of Nairobi and Harvard Law School) and was determined to find the mystery benefactor who transformed his life
  • In some parts of the world, Hilde Back is legend, thanks to an 88-minute, award-winning documentary, “A Small Act”

Hilde Back, a German Jew, fled the Nazi holocaust to neutral Sweden in 1939. She was given refuge because she was a minor. But there were no places for adults and her parents were left behind in Germany.

Soon a letter from her mother reported that Hilde’s father had died in the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt. Then came news that her mother had been deported to Auschwitz. She never heard from her again.

Hilde grew up in Sweden, learned the language and became a teacher. When she was asked by a small Swedish charity to pay for the education of a poor boy in Kenya, she thought this was just “a small act” and committed to £8 a month to meet primary and secondary fees for clever young Chris Mburu from Mitahato village, Kiambu district, north of Nairobi.

Top UN lawyer

That might have been the end of the story except that Chris grew up to be a top UN lawyer (courtesy of the University of Nairobi and Harvard Law School) and was determined to find the mystery benefactor who transformed his life.

This, after much sleuthing, he did, and the happy result was to change the lives of many, many more gifted but needy young Kenyans, through the establishment in 2001 of the Hilde Back Education Fund.

I found nobody among my friends in Britain who knew this dramatic story and on a visit back in Kenya this month I was surprised to find it was not universally known there either. In some parts of the world, however, Hilde Back is legend, thanks to an 88-minute, award-winning documentary, “A Small Act”.

The film by Jennifer Arnold tells the Hilde-Chris story against a real-life situation in the same rural area where three bright children – Kimani, Caroline and Ruth – take the crucial KCPE examination.

A mark of 380 is required to qualify for four years of secondary education sponsored by the fund.

The scenes where the three hopefuls huddle around a mobile phone, texting for their results, waiting, waiting, waiting for a reply, are as tense and suspenseful as any James Bond or Jason Bourne thriller.

On October 6, I met two of the film’s “stars,” Kimani and the beautiful Caroline, and their friend (and mine) Elvis, all of them beneficiaries of Hilde Back Education Fund sponsorship.

The occasion was an open-air party in Mitahato for Hilde, over from Sweden, to mark her 90th birthday with speeches, songs, recitations and dances in which the diminutive and ever-smiling Hilde took an eager and tireless part.

A Small Act” debuted in 2010, scoring notable successes at Robert Redford’s famed Sundance Film Festival and being praised by mainline critics at movie gatherings around the world. The result, including a major though unsolicited boost in donations, catapulted the fund to new levels.

Beneficiaries soared from 39 students over the first eight years to 59 in 2010 alone, 110 in 2011 and 176 in 2012 across all of Kenya’s eight provinces.

Other activities undertaken by the fund widened to include leadership training and psychological support for the chosen children, work with teachers to improve the quality of education at primary level and advocacy for access to quality education for all Kenyan children.

As students gradually complete their four years of secondary education and lay plans for university, some have expressed their gratitude in practical fashion, by volunteering to work with the Fund’s secretariat, a modest staff of seven, in their offices in Westlands, Nairobi.

All this from one small act costing eight pounds per month.

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There has been much discussion recently in a BBC blog about lifts – old and cranky, new and smooth, usually scary.

A one-time university student recalled that the lift in his hall of residence displayed the usual buttons on the control panel: Hold (the doors), 2 (2nd floor), 1 (1st floor) G (ground), B (basement), LB (lower basement).

This was too much for one wit to resist and in indelible ink, he made them read Hold (me tight), 2 (night), 1 (more time), G (whizz), B (mine), LB – W.

(For the non-expert, LBW is a cricketing expression meaning Leg Before Wicket).

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A joke went missing from a recent column, so there’s a bonus this week.

A believer and an atheist were in a car crash but survived. The atheist pointed to the crucifix around the believer’s neck and cried, “Your Lord saved us. Let’s celebrate”.

The happy Christian pulled an unbroken bottle of wine from the wreckage, took a long swig and handed it to the atheist.

“No, thank you,” the atheist said, “I’ll wait until the police get here”.

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The teacher asked her class why, when they went to church, they had to be quiet as mice. Piped up little Johnny: “Because everybody is sleeping.”