The State We're In, 21 January 2012. A man from a poor village in Kenya gets an unexpected hand from Sweden to study at Harvard. A Bulgarian orphan on the verge of dying finds a loving home with South African parents. A Nigerian man betrays his parents to start a new life in the UK. And an Afghan refugee in the Netherlands lives in legal limbo. Comment on the show.

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Chris Mburu

A Small Act

Chris Mburu grew up in a poor village outside Nairobi, Kenya.

He couldn’t afford school fees - until an anonymous sponsor from Sweden helped him. Chris went on to Harvard Law School and became a human rights lawyer. But he’d always been bothered by the fact that he’d never met his benefactor.

Then came the documentary about his story, A Small Act. And Chris finally got to meet Hilde Back - the woman who changed his life.

The Hilde Back Education Fund is a Kenyan charity supporting the education of talented children. More photos below.

Lora with foster parents Elsabe and Jack Louw

RNW

In 1998, Elsabe Louw left her native South Africa to work with orphanages in Bulgaria.

What she saw in Sofia shocked her: an infant girl lying isolated in her crib, left to die.

Elsabe and her husband adopted Lora, moved to South Africa, got Lora as much medical help as they could, and then moved back to Sofia - where Lora’s now a loving, and loved, young woman. More photos below.

Read more about Lora's story at The Lora Foundation.

Ade Adeniji

Walk With Me

When Ade Adeniji was 19, he had a vision: that England – where he’d been born - was his true home, not Nigeria where he’d been raised. He grew up to be church-going, obedient – and desperate. So much so that he betrayed his parents’ trust to escape. 

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When the Mujahideen took over Afghanistan in the early 1990s, Agha Shirin ran for his life. He eventually ended up in Holland.

But when the Dutch government accused him of working for the Afghan secret service, they refused him asylum and put him in prison. Today he lives in a Kafkaesque limbo.