Segment 1

TITLE

A Small Act

CHRIS MBURU [Human Rights Lawyer, United Nations]

I come from this village in central Kenya. I was the top student in the district, but if you did not have money you got kicked out of school. I used to be sent home for long periods of time. Even though I was the top student in the district, I still needed to pay. There happened to be a foundation that was helping bright children from poor families. This program assigned benefactors out in Sweden with beneficiaries here in Kenya. A woman named Hilde Back walked into my life and changed it. Hilde Back started supporting me through primary school and part of secondary school, and I became more confident and I was beginning to think that maybe I had a future. I wanted to start a foundation that would support bright children from poor families, a sort of a replica of the Swedish foundation, only that I wanted this to be a Kenyan foundation helping Kenyan children. So I decided to called the foundation the Hilde Back Education Fund. I'm based in Geneva and I am working for the United Nations, and I'm working for the Anti-Discrimination Unit. I work all over the world. When I was in Congo, I was a human rights officer investigating genocide and crimes against humanity. When I was in Sierra Leone, I was with a peacekeeping operation. In the Rwandan genocide, we had mobs of youths descending upon their neighbors and hacking them to death. You have so many people that are jobless, that are uneducated, and who can be paid an insignificant amount of money to carry out heinous crimes. For me, education is a life or death issue. Sometimes the roots causes of these conflicts are just sitting there, gazing at us, but we don't identify them, we don't put a finger on them.

TITLE

Each year, the Hilde Back Foundation picks the top students from each school to receive a scholarship for secondary school.

CHRIS MBURU

Let's begin. How are all of you?

STUDENTS

Fine.

CHRIS MBURU

Now, I want to read the names of the children we selected. The next one is Moses Waweru Njeri. He went to Giathieko School.

WOMAN

Well done Moses.

CHRIS MBURU

Next is Peris Nyambura.

CHRIS MBURU

Part of the reason why I would like these kids to be educated is because when you have a society that is very, very ignorant, it becomes the breeding ground for violence, it becomes the breeding ground for misinformation, it becomes the breeding ground for intolerance.

CHRIS MBURU

Next is Patrick Kimani Nyambura.

CHRIS MBURU

You have to say, "I know that I cannot provide support, relief, and help to all the suffering that is around me." So sometimes it is just as good to help one child.