A Small Act (7/10)

November 26th, 2011

We’ve all seen the adverts. Sponsor a child/a dolphin/a sick puppy and, for just £2 a month, their lives will be enriched. We watch, but we choose not to see. We don’t do it because the money will fall into corrupt hands, or we just can’t afford it this month, or that it won’t make a difference. Well, Hilde Back’s $15 a month made a difference to Chris Mburu all right. With the money she donated he was able to graduate from his Kenyan secondary school, get to university, then to Harvard, and finally land as a United Nations Human Rights Lawyer. That has to be better value than a couple of packets of smokes a month.

Jennifer Arnold’s A Small Act starts well, and gets better each passing minute. Chris, now healthily rotund and in his forties, tells us how it used to be – and still is – in his little village in Kenya, where education comes in humble one-room schools. The kids work hard, putting their Western cousins to shame as they study day and candle-lit night in order to escape their destinies. Without education, they will end up working the coffee fields, become parents themselves at fifteen or so, and will repeat the circle of poverty. Schools, even ramshackle ones such as the one we see here, still require money, and that is where octogenarian Hilde Back comes in.

Born in Germany, Hilde was sent to Sweden in 1938 to avoid the gas chambers. She never saw her parents again and was left to fend for herself in a strange country. She did so, and her nature dictated that she become a pre-school teacher. She never married, but lived alone with only her TV and radio for company. Donating spare money to charity was a natural progression. Chris knew his benefactor’s name, but nothing of her past. Through his hard work and her sustenance, he rose and rose, giving back to his society by forming the Hilde Back Foundation, its aim to help kids just as he himself was helped.

Hilde knew nothing of this, and so the first time they met it was eye-opening to say the least. She flew to Kenya to be greeted as if she were a demigod, before being given the Kenyan equivalent of the keys of the city. The look on the dear old girl’s face (she was a pensioner when she finally met Chris for the first time) is priceless.

The Hilde Back Foundation continues to this day, and A Small Act shifts its attention to three kids determined to achieve the required pass rate to qualify for funding. I still get chills when I remember how I was when I was waiting for my exam results, but for these charming young people the outcome is far, far greater. In true suspense fashion, director Jennifer Arnold keeps us hanging and hanging, hoping fervently for good news for Kimani, Ruth and Caroline.

You might think that A Small Act sounds suspiciously like an overlong infomercial for charities everywhere, but take heed of the words Chris tells us. ‘Once you have a society that is very, very ignorant it becomes the breeding ground for violence, misinformation and intolerance.’ These words are true, and evident more and more each day. They don’t just pertain to Africa, either, despite Arnold showing us the political unrest that takes place at the same time as the kids’ exams. This documentary underlines the importance of education, but in a thought-provoking and very human manner. After watching a fair few documentaries that highlight the sadness in the world, here is one that shows that some people have humanity in them. Hilde Back’s fifteen dollars a month, a small sum, started a butterfly effect that continues to help people who need it desperately, and this warm, life-affirming documentary will remain in the memory for some time.