Dikembe Mutombo, known for his shot blocking proficiency in an 18-year NBA career, is now often more recognized in retirement as a laundry-swatting, cereal-blocking pitchman for GEICO.
But Mutombo has put in just as many - if not more - hours and logged as many miles as a global humanitarian, whose work includes building a hospital in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mutombo, who played four-plus seasons wiht the Hawks, is president of the Atlanta-based Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which helps to improve the health, education and quality of life for others worldwide. Mutombo will be a keynote speaker during the fourth annual Global Health and Humanitarian Summit at 7 p.m. Friday at Emory University.
“We’re all here for a short period of time,” said Mutombo, who retired as a player for the Houston Rockets in 2009. ” We check in and we check out. What did you do when you checked in? Did you just fall asleep?”
The conference, which is free and open to the public, runs through Sunday and includes film screenings, workshops and exhibits. Mutombo said he wants to encourage others to donate their time and resources to help people whether around the corner or a world away.
It costs relatively little, for example, to help prevent malaria, which is preventable and treatable. Yet, in 2010 the disease claimed more than 600,000 deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization.
The summit has been described as a big networking event for humanitarians designed to “create a collaborative community,” sharing expertise and experience, said Ann Bassarab, one of the core organizers.
Participants include Sam Stephens, executive director of the Global Soap Project, which takes partially-used soap donated by hotels and recycles them to distribute to disaster victims, refugees and people living in poverty; and representatives of the Marafie Foundation, a Kuwait-based family foundation that provides humanitarian aid to institutions and organizations around the world.
“We are giving people a stage to inspire others to do humanitarian work,” said Khuram Ashraf, another organizer. “We need to try to make this world a better place.”
The message is that you don’t have to have the money of a Mutombo.
“Anybody can be a humanitarian,” said Ashraf.
For information, go to www.ghhs2013.org.
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