Sponsorship from an unknown Swedish woman led Chris Mburu towards a UN job and to a national education fund.
We all face crossroads in life, but few present choices as stark as those confronting Chris Mburu as he grew up in rural Kenya. He was an exceptionally bright and hard-working lad, but the road to secondary education – and a better life – was exclusively for the well-off. It was the other path, towards a life of poverty and hard graft in the fields, that he would have to take.
Or at least, that was the case until he became the beneficiary of charitable sponsorship by a Swedish woman, Hilde Back. A thought-provoking new documentary, A Small Act, shows how her $15-a-month sponsorship enabled him not only to complete his school education, but to attend the University of Nairobi and - thanks to a Fulbright scholarship - Harvard law school. It all culminated with a career as a human rights investigator for the United Nations.
Mburu never forgot the sponsor who changed his life. But it wasn't until American film-maker Jennifer Arnold came to him with a plan for making a film about his experience that he had the chance to meet Back and tell her what he had always wanted to say face to face: "Thank you".
"I think the thing that really drew me to the story in the first place was the idea that an ordinary, everyday person can have a quite extraordinary effect on the world, just by doing something small," Arnold told the Guardian on recent trip to London.
Her film – released in the UK on 15 April – celebrates the profound, life-changing impact of a single act of charity and the way it can spread ripples throughout society.
"When I started to make the film it was the Bush era in the United States and a lot of my friends were feeling quite disenfranchised; that it didn't matter what we protested for, or what we voted for, it wouldn't change the world at all," she says.
"But then I heard Chris Mburu's story, about how a woman did a small thing, and had no idea of how important it was, and yet it had such an effect. That was really inspirational to me. It's an uplifting, hopeful story."
The poignancy of Back's charitable act became even more profound when it emerged that she had fled to Sweden as a child to escape the Holocaust. Yet decades later, her regular gift had educated a man who would, without knowing of her experience, dedicate his working life to investigating crimes against humanity around the world – as well as set up his own charity, The Hilde Back Education Fund, which now helps more poor Kenyan children afford education.
"We hope this film will deliver the message that a small act can indeed go a long way and affect a whole community and society at large," says Mburu. "And I think we are seeing this already, because a lot of people are seeing the film and saying that they want to do their own 'small act'. We are really encouraging that."
The film also follows the extremely moving story of three of the brightest children at a rural primary school as they prepare for their difficult KCPE exam at the end of primary school. It's genuinely edge-of-the-seat stuff: getting top marks puts them in the running for one of Mburu's scholarships and, with that, the potential to change their own and their families' lives forever.
"Initially, we just wanted to make a great film, but it quickly became clear it would go way beyond that," says Arnold. "So many people have now seen the film, been inspired and got involved with the Hilde Back fund."
It's a tribute to all involved with the making of A Small Act that, in the 10 days after its premiere at Sundance in 2010, the Hilde Back Education Fund raised $90,000 (£55,000), transforming the charity from a local to a national organisation.
"When we started the whole mission, we could only help 10 kids a year, but now, after making this film, we are able to reach out to a lot more kids," says Mburu, whose organisation now helps 160 children.
"It's discouraging when you can't help everyone that needs help, but it's so encouraging when you see the ones that you can help going on, getting through and getting a better life."
Mburu believes education is the key to solving the political and sectarian conflicts that rip up so much of Africa. "Without jobs and education, it is easy for politicians to give people a really insignificant amount of money to terrible things," he says. "With an education, they can make their own choice, they can be free. This is my message."
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