A profound story of kindness, gratitude, and the enduring impact of a single act has resonated globally, detailing how a modest sponsorship transformed lives and inspired a movement. It centers on Chris Mburu, a Kenyan human rights lawyer, and Hilde Back, the Swedish kindergarten teacher whose quiet generosity propelled him from poverty to international prominence.
In the 1970s, Chris Mburu, a brilliant student from the rural Kenyan village of Mitahato, faced the imminent end of his education due to his family’s inability to afford school fees. Living in an earthen house without electricity or running water, Chris was on the verge of losing his academic future and, as he later reflected, “would have grown up picking coffee.”
Thousands of miles away in Sweden, Hilde Back enrolled in a sponsorship program, sending approximately $15 per term to support Chris. This small, consistent contribution allowed him to remain in school through primary and secondary education. Their relationship grew through exchanged letters, with Hilde inquiring about his studies and Chris recognizing her as “a real person who cared about him,” not just an institution.
Chris excelled, earning a law degree from the University of Nairobi, graduating at the top of his class, and subsequently receiving a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard Law School. He dedicated his career to fighting genocide and crimes against humanity as an international human rights lawyer for the United Nations. Despite his achievements, a feeling of unexpressed gratitude for Hilde persisted.
In 2001, Chris established a scholarship foundation to aid talented, impoverished children. Seeking to honor his mysterious benefactor, he enlisted the Swedish Ambassador in Kenya to locate her. They found Hilde Back, a modest, warm 80-year-old woman living a simple life in Sweden, who was “stunned that anyone thought she had done anything remarkable.” Chris had expected a wealthy philanthropist, but instead found humility.
Documentary filmmaker Jennifer Arnold later uncovered a powerful detail Hilde had kept private: she was a German Jew, born in 1922, who had fled to Sweden at sixteen to escape the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. Her parents, unable to accompany her due to Sweden’s policy on older refugees, perished in concentration camps. Hilde had survived the Holocaust because a stranger helped her escape, and she herself had been denied an education because of her identity. Decades later, she quietly funded the education of a child who would grow up to combat the very hatred that had devastated her own family. Chris, in turn, was speechless upon learning her story, while Hilde was unaware that the boy she sponsored had dedicated his life to fighting genocide.
In 2003, Hilde traveled to Kenya for the inauguration of the Hilde Back Education Fund, where she was welcomed as an honorary village elder. She returned in 2012 to celebrate her 90th birthday surrounded by children whose lives had been changed by the foundation bearing her name.
Today, the Hilde Back Education Fund has provided educational opportunities to nearly 1,000 Kenyan children, many of whom have pursued higher education globally. These beneficiaries are now “beginning to give back — mentoring new students and pooling monthly contributions to sponsor the next generation, through a platform they call ‘A Small Act Jamii.'”
Hilde Back passed away on January 13, 2021, at the age of 98 in Västerås, Sweden. Their remarkable journey was captured in the Emmy-nominated documentary “A Small Act,” which premiered to standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival, reportedly attracting donations from figures like Bill Gates.
Chris Mburu once stated, “You can’t change the entire world. So sometimes it’s just as good to help one child.” Hilde helped one child, and that child built a foundation that has assisted nearly a thousand more, who are now helping others. This powerful chain reaction began with just “$15 and a stranger’s kindness.”
