24/06/2026
I want to tell you about Blandine.
Not about systems, reports, or development jargon but about a young woman who survived a place where life often feels like waiting for something that never comes.
Blandine Felix is 24. She comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
For years she lived in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya a place that holds over 300,000 people, a place where “temporary” becomes a lifetime.
In February, Blandine showed us 30 certificates she earned in Kakuma:
mindfulness, HIV prevention, “how to be happy”, awareness workshops. Thirty pieces of paper.
For the system - they were indicators.
For donors - proof of activity.
For organizations - a photo in a report.
But for Blandine?
None of these certificates gave her a profession, a job, or a way to support her three children.
In 2025 she fled Kakuma and travelled to Nairobi.
The bus took more than 24 hours, overcrowded, breaking down twice. She arrived in a city she didn’t know, with three children holding her hands: Suleiman (8), Mohamed (9), and Amina (4).
We hired her to lead a workshop about life in Kakuma because no consultant, no report, no outsider can describe it the way someone who lived it can.
And her story revealed something painful:
The system taught her how to die happy.
It never taught her how to live.
In Europe, a workshop certificate is a nice extra.
In a refugee camp, it can become a symbol of false progress development without development.
Today, Blandine’s children are not in school.
The cost of sending all three to primary school in Nairobi is around 1500 PLN per year. Not per month, per year.
Without uniforms, exams, tests, and mandatory fees, a child simply falls out of the system.
This is not an abstract debate about development models.
This is the line between a future and the absence of one.
That is why, as Unsung Heroes Foundation, we decided to fund the education of her children starting next school year. It will not fix the global aid system. It will not change Kakuma.
But it will change the lives of three children who deserve more than survival.
Sometimes real development doesn’t start with a conference.
It starts with a school uniform, an exam fee, and a child walking into a classroom.
Blandine doesn’t need another certificate.
She needs a chance and so do her children.
The entire story (in Polish):
Kiedy miałem 24 lata, marzyłem o karierze w bankowości. Później wciągnął mnie świat innowacji i przedsiębiorczości. W 2017 roku zostałem laureatem rankingu 50
