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While there are many ways to offer help to people in need, being part of the solution can seem useful. There are many millions of starving children around the world. How can a single person who isn’t a billionaire have an impact? Where do you start? Start with one small act. 

When Hilde Back was a schoolteacher in Sweden, she decided to sponsor one child’s education in Kenya. Hilde’s sponsorship of Chris cost about $15 per month. Most poor children in Kenya cannot afford to pay secondary school tuition. Unfortunately, without an education, an extremely difficult and poor life is practically guaranteed. Thanks to Hilde’s generosity, Chris avoided that fate.

Chris graduated from high school, went to University of Nairobi and then attended Harvard Law School. He became a U.N. Human Rights Advocate, and he started a charity. He got the name of his anonymous (匿名的) sponsor through the Swedish embassy and named his nonprofit organization the Hilde Back Education Fund (HBEF) after the sponsor he never met. 

HBEF pays tuition for poor students in Kenya. Since the charity’s start, 350 children have been supported. Three hundred and fifty lives have been changed directly so far. That doesn’t even include the impact on their families. And who knows how many of these students will be inspired, as Chris was, to give back.

When talking about why he started HBEF to educate poor children, he said, “I think I want to see a world in which children have equal opportunity and are not robbed of their future by poverty, like so many of my friends in the village were.”

It’s interesting that the only reason why Hilde Back was even alive to support Chris was because of a stranger’s kindness. This is a reminder that we can all make a difference, and you never know what a big impact a small act of kindness can have.