Helena Kmieć

Helena Agnieszka Kmieć was born on 9 February 1991 in Kraków. Helena's parents, Jan from Libiąż and Agnieszka from Kraków, met while building a church in Zakopane. Agnieszka died when Helena was six weeks old. She and her older sister were raised by their stepmother. Helena obtained a master's degree in engineering at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Silesian University of Technology, where she studied technology and chemical engineering in English. After graduating, she worked as a flight attendant for an airline. She was active in the academic chaplaincy, and she was a volunteer as part of the Missionary Volunteer Service. She organized day camps for children at the parishes of the Salvatorian Fathers in Hungary and in Romania. In 2013, during the mission in Zambia, she worked with children and young people at the Salvation Home centre in Lusaka and in a village in Chongwe District. During the 2016 World Youth Day in Poland, she was their coordinator in the parish of St. Barbara in her hometown of Libiąż.

On 8 January 2017, together with Anita Szuwald, she went on a mission to Bolivia, where she planned to help the Servant Sisters of Dębica in an orphanage in Cochabamba until June. She died on the night of 24–25 January 2017, stabbed during an assault on the facility. In March 2018, a Bolivian court sentenced her killer, to 30 years in prison.

By the decision of the President of Poland of 7 February 2017, she was posthumously awarded the Gold Cross of Merit for her charitable and social activities and her commitment to people in need of help. Her funeral ceremonies began on 18 February 2017 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Trzebinia, and on 19 February they continued in her hometown of Libiąż. The funeral ceremony was of a state character. Helena Kmieć was buried in the cemetery at the parish church of St. Barbara in Libiąż. The beatification process of Helena began on 10 May 2024 in the Chapel of the Palace of the Archbishops of Kraków and from that moment she is entitled to the title of Servant of God. In May 2017, the Society of the Divine Savior established the Helena Kmieć Foundation to promote helping children and youth in mission countries.