Program seeks solutions in African healthcare

Mohamed Abdalla stands behind the counter of the Skycafé, inside SkySong, which he operates through ASU's Edson Student Entrepreneurship Initiative program. Abdalla is starting a new entrepreneurial venture called "Business for Doctors" which helps provide healthcare for people in Africa. (Matt Pavelek/The State Press)

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Mohamed Abdalla never appreciated Band-Aids — a quick fix to cover up problems.

Through his program Business for Doctors, Abdalla is trying to heal an enduring wound in rural African healthcare, bringing doctors to orphanages and providing the means to support and sustain their own medical care.

“We were able to enhance the lives of those children,” he said. “That’s how I think humanitarianism should work; it should be able to run itself and not depend on handouts from different countries … it’s all about sustainability.”

Abdalla, a molecular biology and linguistics senior, was originally struck by a televised interview of ASU biodesign professor and virologist Bertram Jacobs, particularly his research about Nairobi women who have a special resistance to AIDS and HIV. Abdalla wanted to help.

“For the longest time, I would go everyday to the Biodesign Institute and try to talk to him, but he was very busy, always out in Africa or doing research,” Abdalla said.

After six months the receptionists at the institute finally arranged a meeting.

Abdalla appealed to Jacob for a job, stressing his familiarity with six languages — his knowledge of East African Swahili would at least land him a translating job, Abdalla thought.

Jacobs — unable to fit Abdalla into his next program — referred him with Heal International, a nonprofit organization that works to provide health care for resource-limited communities. They sent Abdalla to Africa a month later.

He worked in the small village of Kisongo, located in Tanzania, with an orphanage that shelters HIV positive children and children whose parents died from AIDS.

“We went solely to make a difference,” Abdalla said. “We didn’t have any other money besides our own savings accounts.”

During his stay, the village chief spoke with Abdalla about his efforts, explaining that foreign aid, while helpful to the village, only presented a fleeting solution.

The chief compared his village to a man drowning in a well and yelling for help. It is not enough to pull a man out only to drop him back into the water again, he said.

Impassioned by the moment, Abdalla promised the chief his village would not fall into the water again.

“I told him that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” Abdalla said. “I want to be the ladder you use to get out of the well, or even throw you a rope you can tie and get yourself out of the well.”

Contemplating the promise later that night, Abdalla formulated a plan to help the community through empowering local businesses.

He approached business owners and offered a deal: He would supply materials to expand their business effectiveness — binders, papers, printers and typewriters — in exchange for their pledge of 25 percent of future profits to fund medical care in four local orphanages.

Every local business agreed and signed the contract.

Abdalla haggled with equipment suppliers and returned with the materials the next day. He decided to name the program Business for Doctors.

The program hires doctors who will come to remote locations and work long hours. The area’s shortage of doctors and medicine — one doctor per 50,000 people — makes it difficult and expensive to hire professionals without support, Abdalla said.

Giving the community a way to help itself provides a more permanent and prideful solution, Abdalla said.

He receives a report every three months on the orphanages’ progress but said the community’s welfare is now in its own hands.

After returning to ASU in the fall of 2007, Abdalla applied for the “Coffee Competition” through the Entrepreneur Advantage Program at ASU, a program aimed at giving students a chance to run a business during their education. The winners of the competition received $10,000 to start a coffee shop at SkySong, ASU’s business and innovation center in Scottsdale.

Abdalla’s team beat 10 others for a grant to open SkyCafé, an organic and eco-friendly café at North Scottsdale and East McDowell roads.

To help keep Business for Doctors strong, Abdalla adopted the same pledge African businesses made, sending 25 percent of his profits back to Africa.

Scott Perkofski, program manager for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at ASU, said Abdalla has some autonomy over his business and thinks the donations speak to what entrepreneurship should represent.

“We don’t really see entrepreneurship as being in any type of field,” he said. “[Students] create ventures in the areas they feel passionate about, and we try to encourage that.”

Reach the reporter at channing.turner@asu.edu [5].