In search of a sustainable philanthropy.

Nairobi, Kenya will soon see a brand new women’s hospital offering free treatment to women. It comes courtesy not of the government, nor of the usual international aid agencies, but of an unlikely collaboration between a local obstetrician and the mother of the world’s most famous basketball star. Deloris Jordan, mother of Michael, has long been active in local philanthropy in the United States and her home city, Chicago, working through the James R. Jordan Foundation, named after her late husband. She first went to Kenya 13 years ago, bringing American children on a cultural visit. She ended up bringing back a young Masai man and putting him through an MBA course. He has since returned to Kenya to build a tourism business in his community. Deloris Jordan has returned many times since, but her visit three years ago, she says, changed her life. “I went back to Kenya in 2003, at the invitation of the vice-president, for the 40th anniversary of independence. I was invited to visit the Nairobi Women’s Hospital with about 40 beds. The line outside was long, but they were all treated whether they had money or not. I met the staff there, and later when the hospital’s founder Dr Samuel Thenya came to the United States on a visit, I flew to Washington to meet him, because I wanted to know why a young man would set up a women’s hospital. I started working with him to try to get the hospital some equipment, including some of the things our hospitals throw away.” Mrs Jordan says she is determined that her project will be more than a rich person’s plaything, or a pathway to recognition. “I found that working in Africa and especially Nairobi, it’s vital to learn about their culture, not trying to take over but learning from them what their needs are.” “I learnt a lot from my visit to London on World Health Day in April,” she says, referring to the launch of The world health report 2006: Working together for health, which highlights the plight of 57 developing countries with serious shortages of health workers. “I wanted to learn how to really reach out into the villages, to truly make a lasting difference.” She describes Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as a fountain of useful advice. A key message that Mrs Jordan took from the WHO event was the need to retain staff in a continent where health workers are continually seeping away in search of a better living abroad. “I found that some of Dr Thenya’s health-care staff and nurses were looking for work abroad. This is, of course, a big problem in Africa. They need to feel needed there, and that they have a future there. They need decent benefits. It’s the only way a project will last.” One of the hospital’s immediate goals is to set up an exchange programme to train nurses and other staff in the United States. “For me, it’s all about networking and partnership, not just here but also in Kenya. We talked to the mayor of Nairobi and the parliament about a better facility.” The city council has donated land for a larger 150-bed hospital. The plan is to move the old hospital’s staff to the new facility and replace much of the old equipment. Completion is planned for 2010, at an estimated cost of $20 million. “My main role was networking in the United States, to try to get some of this equipment that Pfizer and so on don’t need. I later partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative. When (former) President Clinton visited Nairobi, they told him I’d been there, and he called me to find out what I was doing. He then began to help Dr Thenya, providing some medicines for the AIDS patients there.”