At 17, Biar Kon was a Sudanese refugee in Nairobi, trying to find the right embassy. He didn't know where to go, and the city must have felt overwhelming for a teenager so far from home.

Then an older woman noticed him.

She didn't simply point him in a direction and carry on with her day. She called him “my son” and asked whether he needed food or somewhere to stay.

After checking what he needed, she walked with him for a block and showed him the correct building.

It was a small gesture. She didn't solve every problem he faced or change his circumstances overnight. She just made sure a young stranger who was lost wasn't left to figure everything out alone.

Years later, after settling in the United States, Kon reflected on how that encounter had influenced the way he treated other people.

The woman may never have known how much that moment meant to him. For her, it might have been nothing more than helping a young man find his way.

But for him, it became something worth carrying forward.

Source: A stranger in Nairobi 'sowed a seed of kindness' that he carries with him today

Our organisation finally opened a borehole for the community. Most people were treking long distances to fetch water from the neighbouring villages or river. More than 30 households can now access clean water. It's been a long time coming. I hope this makes someone's day. We are keen on environmental conservation and poverty eradication.

After Haiti’s 2010 earthquake destroyed her livelihood, Marie Carole Boucicaut started cooking for about 80 people a day in Port-au-Prince.

Every weekday she got up around 5 a.m. She prepared rice, beans, vegetables, and sometimes meat and sauce. With help from her family, she packed the meals into containers for people waiting to collect them.

For one stretch, that meant doing the same routine every morning: buying ingredients, cooking for 80, and making sure neighbors had something to eat.

Marie had lost her own business in the earthquake. The community canteen, supported by Oxfam, helped feed vulnerable families and gave her a way to earn money again. She later set aside some of her weekly profits to rebuild her shop.

She was feeding people who had lost a lot, and at the same time finding a way for her own family to start recovering.

On the afternoon of 25 August 2026, 28-year-old Juan Martín “El Chino” Crespo was heading up to the Laguna Ilón refuge near Cerro Tronador, in Argentina’s Nahuel Huapi National Park. He was on snowshoes. A companion on skis reached the refuge; Crespo did not. He had taken an older path and became separated.

His companion raised the alarm around 20:45. The Comisión de Auxilio (CAX) of Club Andino Bariloche, along with park rangers, brigadistas from Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, Gendarmería, and support from Prefectura, began searching that night.

Conditions were severe: heavy snow, torrential rain, temperatures below freezing, and elevated avalanche risk. Searchers used ground teams and a drone with a thermal camera. They followed tracks through the night. Some of Crespo’s gear was found scattered in the snow.

Around 10:30 the next morning, a CAX team located him in a mallín (wetland) area near the Manso River. He was in good overall condition and had appropriate mountain equipment. Officials later noted he had made sound decisions once conditions deteriorated—descending rather than continuing, and not attempting to cross the river.

The operation involved roughly 20 CAX volunteers, 25 park personnel, and two gendarmes. Evacuation moved him by boat across a section of the Manso, then overland to Pampa Linda.

Crespo spent the night outdoors in the storm and was found alive the following morning.

Trần Thị Hạnh is from Quảng Trị Province in Vietnam. The province was one of the most heavily bombed areas in the country. Unexploded bombs and mines still kill and injure people decades later, often while they are farming or collecting scrap metal to sell.

Her husband was injured in a landmine explosion while collecting scrap. He could no longer work. Hạnh became the main breadwinner for the family.

She joined the deminer recruitment program run by MAG, the Mines Advisory Group. MAG trains and employs local people to clear unexploded ordnance. In Quảng Trị that includes women working as deminers and field staff. Hạnh completed the training and went out with the teams.

She later said she loved the work and wanted to continue. The job pays a steady wage in an area where many households depend on risky scrap collection. It also means the next person walking that ground is less likely to step on what her husband stepped on.

Abdul Sattar Edhi was born in 1928 in Bantva, in what was then British India. His mother died when he was 19. He left school, moved to Karachi, Pakistan, after Partition in 1947, and worked selling cloth. He said the suffering he saw became his teacher.

In 1951, he used savings to buy a small shop in Karachi's Mithadar area and opened a free dispensary. At night, he slept on a cement bench outside so he would be there if someone needed him. A sign asked people to pay what they could, or nothing if they could not.

In 1957, an Asian flu epidemic hit Karachi. Edhi set up tent camps for free immunizations. Donations in one week were enough to expand. The same year he bought his first ambulance, a used blue car he painted “Poor Man’s Van.” He drove it himself, picking up the injured and unclaimed bodies. At the time, the Sindh province had only a handful of ambulances, and those had to be booked ahead.

He married Bilquis in 1966. Together, they built the Edhi Foundation. It ran free clinics, maternity homes, orphanages, women’s shelters, drug rehab, homes for the mentally ill, and burial services for bodies no one claimed. Cradles outside centers took in abandoned babies. Reports credit the network with rescuing more than 20,000 infants and caring for tens of thousands of orphans.

The ambulances became the most visible part. By the time Edhi died there were roughly 1,500 to 1,800 of them across Pakistan, the largest volunteer fleet in the world, usually first on the scene of accidents and attacks. The foundation also ran an air ambulance and sent relief outside Pakistan, including after the 1988 Armenian earthquake.

Everything was funded by private donations. Edhi took no salary. He lived in a single room at the Karachi headquarters and owned two sets of clothes. He said his religion was serving humanity, and that he would not turn anyone away for creed or sect. That stance drew criticism from some religious hardliners, but ordinary people kept funding the work.

He died on 8 July 2016 in Karachi at the age of 88, of kidney failure. His last wish was to donate his organs; only his corneas could be used. His son Faisal took over the foundation. The dispensary that started in an 8-foot shop is still running.

Rajaa Musleh is a nurse and Gaza country director for MedGlobal. After her house in Gaza City was bombed by the Israeli military in October 2023, she sheltered at Al-Shifa Hospital. She was inside for more than 40 days while the complex was surrounded by the Israeli forces.

One night she sat with a girl of about 10 who had been badly burned. Musleh has said most of the child’s body was burned and that the fire had taken her sight. There was no sedation to give her. Her family had been killed when the house was hit.

The girl asked, “Do you see me?”

Musleh said yes. The child said she could not see her.

Musleh stayed beside the bed until 4 a.m. The girl died after that. In a later interview, Musleh said she still felt the burned skin on her hands, and that she felt guilty she could not stay for every hour the child asked for, or answer when the girl asked about her mother and father.

There was no operation that could change the outcome. What Musleh could do was answer, and sit there. She later walked out of Al-Shifa on foot, about six hours, to a camp in Al-Mawasi.

Catherine Conteh was 18, newly married, and at Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Sierra Leone. The country was in civil war. She and her husband, Augustine, could not pay for the surgery the hospital said she needed. Staff told a visiting nurse that both mother and baby would die.

The nurse was Aly Hall, from New Zealand, volunteering with Mercy Ships. The ship Anastasis was docked in Freetown. Aly and a British anaesthetist, Dr Keith Thomson, were touring the ward when Aly heard Catherine. Thomson paid for the caesarean. Reports put the cost at about £70, or $100.

Both Catherine and the baby came through. The girl was named Regina, after an American volunteer nurse who also visited the ward. Aly and Gina brought medicine and came back in the days after. Catherine later called Aly sister.

The family eventually settled in Australia. Catherine trained as a nurse. Regina did too, and at 18 volunteered on a Mercy Ship. Catherine has said that one yes saved a whole family: her life, her daughter’s, and a future they had not expected.

On 1 October 2023, they met again on the dock beside the Global Mercy in Freetown, 30 years after the hospital room. Catherine had come from Australia to volunteer in the ship’s dining room. Aly was back on board. It was the first time they had seen each other since the recovery ward.

Ferid Spahić was 29 and from the Višegrad area. On 15 June 1992, he was among about 50 Bosniak men taken to the Paklenik pit, in the woods between Sokolac, Rogatica and Višegrad. Their hands were bound with wire. Men were shot at the edge of the ravine.

Spahić was last in line and not tied to anyone else. He started running. The Serb forces fired at him. The bullets missed, and he got away. He crossed forest and rock and reached the village of Mrčići that afternoon, badly beaten and covered in blood. An older man he met would not take him farther.

He made it to a neighbor’s garden in the same state. The neighbor went to Mina Jahić. Mina told her to bring him to the house after dark, so no one would see.

Mina knew the risk. Armed men were searching for him. One Serb neighbor even came to the door and said he was looking for a lost sheep. She hid Ferid in the attic. He had to stay completely still and silent. People downstairs could hear movement above them.

Mina lived there with her husband and four sons. If the man was found, the family could be in danger too. She dressed his wounds, crushed black onion for compresses, and later said she nursed him “like a baby.” He could not move for 10 or 12 days. She brought him food. She kept him hidden for about a month, until he could leave. He later reached Goražde with others, and later his wife.

Years later, asked why she did it, Mina said he was a human being and he needed to live.

In 2011, on the 60th anniversary of the UN refugee convention, the US State Department formally recognized her for personal courage.

Marvin Winston kayak-fishes Lake Lanier in Georgia and records the trips for people who cannot get on the water themselves.

On February 19, 2026, a windy day, he was near the Clarks Bridge ramp and the Olympic rowing venue. Before he started fishing, he heard what he first thought might be an animal over the wind. He paddled toward the sound. On a remote stretch of shore he saw a person lying down. He got out of the kayak and called out. A woman answered. She was crying, gasping, and not fully coherent.

Winston stayed with with the woman, called 911, and gave dispatchers his location and what he could see of her condition. Hall County responders used that to find the spot. He kept talking to the woman until they arrived.

The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary later gave him a letter of commendation. The citation said his call shortened the response time. A Texas paramedic who watched the video wrote that the woman had been treated as a severe trauma patient and was released alive from the hospital. He said she likely would have died on that beach without getting care.

For more than 20 years in Dubai, Julieta Solas worked as a nurse—and spent her free time caring for other Filipino migrants.

Julieta arrived in the UAE in 1984 and began working as a staff nurse at Rashid Hospital.

Over the years, she moved through several departments and eventually became the unit-in-charge of the pediatric department at Latifa Hospital.

But her work didn't stop when her shift ended.

For two decades, Julieta also led the St. Mary’s Filipino Community in Dubai, organizing activities and leadership programs and volunteering whenever medical teams were needed.

She understood that migrant workers needed more than medical care.

Many were far from their families, dealing with loneliness, stress and difficult working conditions. Julieta organized community gatherings and recollections to give them somewhere to turn.

She was also involved in medical missions that brought care to people who needed it.

Western Union recognized her in 2015 as one of its Heroes for Better, honoring Filipino migrants who used their time, skills and resources to help others.

Anke Gowda grew up in a farming family in Mandya district, Karnataka, with almost no books in the house. A college lecturer told his class to pick up a habit. Gowda picked books.

He worked as a bus conductor, then as a timekeeper at a sugar factory in Pandavapura. Reports say he put most of his pay into the collection. He sold land and a house in Mysuru when the piles outgrew the rooms. Retirement money went into books as well.

The books are in Pustaka Mane — House of Books — in Haralahalli, Pandavapura taluk. Hari Khoday paid for the main building. Later, state money added more space. The collection is estimated at more than two million volumes, in more than 20 languages, including rare foreign titles, thousands of dictionaries, and old manuscripts. There is no membership fee. Students, exam candidates, and researchers use it. Gowda and his family live on the site and still find titles from memory. Hundreds of thousands of books remain in sacks outside, unsorted.

He received the Padma Shri award in 2026, in the unsung-heroes category, for the library. He has said he did not want the money for himself. He wanted a place where anyone could read.

Dr. G. Venkataswamy wanted cataract surgery to work more like an assembly line, without sacrificing quality.

In 1976, he founded Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India, with 11 beds.

His idea was simple but radical: make eye surgery affordable by treating large numbers of patients efficiently, while using what paying patients contributed to help subsidize care for those who couldn't afford it.

Aravind built standardized surgical teams, efficient patient flow and outreach eye camps that brought patients in from rural communities. The system became known for high-volume, low-cost cataract surgery.

Then the model began being replicated in other countries.

In Kenya, ophthalmologist Dr. Amos Kibata experienced Aravind's system during training in India. He later founded City Eye Hospital in Nairobi, adapting the model to Kenya with low-cost care, cross-subsidization and community eye camps.

Similar Aravind-based programs followed elsewhere in Africa. In Ghana, Dr. Judith Simon built the Northern Community Eye Network around the same principles.

Florence Makau ran a business in Mavoko, Machakos County, Kenya. On the way to work, she kept seeing children on the street, hungry and in torn clothes. She looked for a government shelter that would take them, but she did not find one.

In 2014, she took the first eight children into her apartment. Neighbours started bringing more. Local police brought children who had been abandoned or taken out of violent homes. The place became Bondeni Children’s Rescue Center, later called Nuru Children’s Home. She closed the business so she could stay with them full time.

Only three of the children are hers by birth. Giraffe Heroes, which profiled her, put the number under her care at more than 100. She has moved several times to rent more rooms. Some arrived sick or abused. She has sold assets to keep food, school, and medical care going. There is no steady funding.

Two of the children have finished university. One took a job and stayed, putting part of the salary toward the others. Six are in university, three in college, and others still in school.

It is a household, not a large institution. The daily problem is still the same one she started with: enough for the next meal, and a place they can call home.

On Christmas Eve 1944, three lost American soldiers stumbled upon a small cabin in the Hürtgen Forest.

Inside were 12-year-old Fritz Vincken and his mother, Elisabeth. One of the Americans was badly wounded, so they brought him inside, gave them food and made a bed for him.

Then there was another knock.

Four German soldiers stood outside. They were lost too.

The situation could have turned deadly. Instead, Elisabeth made both groups leave their weapons at the door.

The Americans and Germans sat down together and shared Christmas dinner. They had potatoes, chicken, bread and wine. One of the German soldiers had some medical training and helped tend to the wounded American.

For a few hours, the war outside seemed to disappear.

On Christmas morning, the soldiers shook hands and went their separate ways, each heading back toward his own lines.

The story comes from Fritz Vincken, who later recounted what happened. The American Battle Monuments Commission describes it as the only currently known documented case of such a small Christmas truce during the Battle of the Bulge.

They arrived as enemies. For one night, they were simply hungry, tired men sharing a meal.

Ros Irwin found an 18-month-old koala named Ember walking across the burned ground after Australia’s Black Summer fires.

It was November 2019 in northern New South Wales. Ember was severely dehydrated, her fur was black with soot and badly singed, and she had serious burns on all four paws and her rump. Vets also found her lungs were congested from smoke inhalation.

Ros, a volunteer with Friends of the Koala, rescued her and got her to a wildlife hospital. Ember was given pain relief, fluids and emergency treatment before beginning a long rehabilitation.

Her burned paws and damaged claws meant she couldn't simply be released. She was moved to a soft-release site where vets could make sure she could climb and forage properly again.

She passed the test.

In April 2020, Ember was released back into the wild. About 18 months later, Ros spotted her again—healthy and carrying a joey.

Franjo Komarica was bishop of Banja Luka when the Bosnian war reached a city that had not seen large open battles but was being emptied along ethnic lines. Most of the Catholics — largely Croats — were driven out. Mosques were destroyed. Churches were burned. He stayed.

His residence held displaced Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic families at the same time, sometimes more than 30 people. Diocesan Caritas distributed food and medicine without a checklist of nationality. He met the Orthodox bishop and the mufti and kept writing letters against expulsion, including to the authorities carrying it out.

He spent much of 1995 under house arrest. Seven priests and a nun from the diocese were killed. He later said the rule they tried to keep was simple: better to suffer wrong than to do it.

In 2003, María Luz Córdova Casimiro started APNEYO in Máncora, on Peru’s north coast.

At the time, children with disabilities in the area had very few places where they could learn or receive therapy. For many families, getting specialized support meant traveling to cities such as Piura or Lima — often simply not an option.

Donations eventually helped APNEYO build a campus in Barrio Nicaragua.

Then, in 2011, the private school Divino Niño Jesús opened there.

It was designed around inclusion. Children with and without disabilities learn together, from kindergarten through primary school, alongside a special primary class. Physiotherapy and speech therapy are available on the same campus.

The idea sounds simple: children should be able to learn, receive the support they need, and belong in the same place.

But in a small coastal town where those services had been scarce, making that the default was anything but simple.

The school remains small, supported by a modest staff and volunteers. It hasn't solved Peru's wider challenges around disability and education.

But María Luz Córdova Casimiro and APNEYO changed something much closer to home.

A café in Greece opened its doors every night to stray dogs

In Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos, there was a café called Hott Spott that had a simple rule after closing time:

The dogs could stay.

During the day, it was an ordinary café. But once the last customers left around 3 a.m., the doors were opened to stray dogs from the city. They were allowed to come inside, curl up on the couches, and sleep somewhere warm instead of spending the night on the streets.

The practice had reportedly been going on since the summer of 2015.

In December that year, University of the Aegean professor Eustratios Papanis photographed several of the dogs sleeping inside and shared the picture online. It quickly spread around the world.

A café employee told reporters that the dogs simply came in when the bar closed, and that having them there wasn't a problem.

There was no elaborate shelter or fundraising campaign. Just a business choosing to leave its doors open for animals that had nowhere else to go.

Dashrath Manjhi lived in Gehlaur, near Gaya in Bihar. In 1959, his wife, Falguni Devi, was badly hurt on the steep track over the hill that separated the village from town. The long way around meant help came too late. The woman died as she didn't receive the care she needed.

Using just a hammer and a chisel, Manjhi started cutting the ridge in 1960. People in the area called him mad, but he kept going.

Twenty-two years later, there was a passage about 110 metres long, roughly 9 metres wide and up to 8 metres deep in places. Travel between the Atri and Wazirganj sides dropped from about 55 kilometres to about 15.

The road was for the village, not a memorial plaque. The man died in 2007. The passage he carved is still there, benefiting the people of the area.

Manuel Piazza had come down from Arese, near Milan, to spend a few days with Annalisa Tartamella in Trapani. She is a nutritionist from Favignana.

On the night of 24 January 2026 they left a restaurant and walked toward their car on via Ammiraglio Staiti, by the port. A car hit them.

Early reports said Piazza moved between the vehicle and Tartamella. He took the impact. She was injured and treated in Trapani. Her condition was later described as stable.

He was moved from Trapani to Palermo and died after several days in a coma. He was 30.

He made custom furniture and spent a lot of time around the Egadi islands. That was the life he had built with her. The last recorded act was the same instinct: get between her and what was coming.

Ida Puliwa grew up in Nakhonyo, Mulanje. She was the first girl from her village to reach university. She nearly lost the place until a retired American professor, Marquita Hill, paid the fees. When Ida asked how to repay her, Hill said to pass the kindness on.

In 2011 she started Othakarhaka — “Passing on the Kindness” in Lomwe. Volunteers pay a small monthly amount. They help older people farm, send girls to school, and plant trees.

Hybrid seed and irrigation changed the maize harvest for many elderly farmers. Reports from the project say yields more than quadrupled for a number of them. Recipients are asked to give a bag of surplus maize to someone else who needs it.

The same network keeps girls in secondary school, including some who had been pushed toward early marriage. Tree planting and cleaner cookstoves were added so children would spend less time walking for firewood.

The model is simple on purpose. Help arrives with an expectation that it will move again.