From childhood, Mulyanza Huguette was strong and lithe and loved to run long distances near her home in Butembo, in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She also loved working with children, so when she enrolled in Butembo’s Assumption College, she studied early childhood education.

Huguette graduated from college in July 2018—and a month later, the World Health Organization officially declared that North Kivu was experiencing an outbreak of Ebola. So Huguette’s dream shifted: She went to work for UNICEF to educate communities about Ebola—how the viral hemorrhagic fever spreads, how early treatment can arrest it, and how delaying treatment can be fatal.

In this central African nation of some 81 million, Huguette’s just one of many