by Chael Needle

As we watch television, the images of the developing world often flit by as fast as those globetrotting contestants on CBS’s The Amazing Race. It’s easy to become an armchair tourist, noticing the lack of resources that people are facing but not being moved to take action and help. Granted, we often don’t know how to marshal the resources we have at our fingertips. Opportunities created for us—to give, to care, to act—can be just as golden as the ones we eke out ourselves, however.

That seems to be the attitude of the Global Health Fellows, Pfizer’s corporate program that offers employees a volunteer opportunity to work hands-on with nonprofits focused on fighting diseases such as TB, malaria, and AIDS in Africa and Asia. What started off as a pilot program has blossomed into a model of corporate philanthropy, widely recognized as innovative by Pfizer’s peers in the humanitarian community. In fact, says Atiya Ali, program manager for Global Health Fellows in International Philanthropy, “other companies are starting to approach us to learn about our program. We’re interested in the idea that we can inspire other companies.”

In the globalized market, it makes good business sense to put a human face on Big Pharma, yet the work of the Fellows is arguably not reducible to profit margins. It’s also hard to sneeze at $686 million worth of products and grants given out in the course of Pfizer’s philanthropic efforts in 2003 alone.

In January 2005, Pfizer sent its third “class” of Fellows abroad to work with NGOs, such as the American Jewish World Service and Health Volunteers Overseas, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a U.S. government initiative. While the Fellows are abroad, Pfizer pays their salaries, as well as the cost of assignment, and maintains their positions within the company for when they return.

 Fellows are chosen through a competitive process that begins with an application and a desire to make a difference in the world. The skills and expertise of each chosen Fellow are carefully matched to an NGO’s needs. An assignment can last up to six months, says Ali, so the program looks for projects that fit the schedule, as well. “We’re trying to build infrastructure,” Ali says. “We’ve deeply adopted the position that we are building capacity on the ground. People who are going out there are doing it in a sustainable way.” To this end, Global Health selects NGOs with the capacity to at least “be able to handle the volunteers’ contributions. We didn’t want the program to be a burden on any of the NGOs,” she notes.

When I spoke with new Fellow Gary Mandelburg, he was prepping for his stint working with the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation to hire staff to operate and maintain the Infectious Diseases Institute in Kampala, Uganda. (At Pfizer, he validates equipment used in facilities management and operations.) His global consciousness had already been deeply informed by his National Guard tour of duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was looking forward to sharing his expertise abroad. “I hope my family goes with me. They’ll see a side of life they haven’t seen before,” says Mandelburg. “Frankly, as Americans, we’re kind of spoiled and we don’t see that. I’m just so pleased to help out in this small way.” That “small way,” Mandelburg stresses, also means working with each and every organization in a facilitative, rather than directive, manner.

Deborah Wafer, a Fellow who recently returned from her assignment in Mbale, Uganda, where she worked with the Foundation for Development of Needy Communities, agrees: “The first thing I noticed was the lack of education and work experience of the staff, yet I didn’t want to come off as the American with all the right answers.” Leaving preconceived ideas at home, she instead brought with her fifteen years of experience and knowledge culled from working in the HIV/AIDS field—and this was before she started work with Pfizer as a consumer marketing manager for Viracept. She also brought with her a long-nurtured interest in “helping to address the unique and urgent needs of women and children affected by HIV in resource-poor communities,” Wafer says, adding that her experiences working with diverse HIV communities across the U.S. has taught her how to “accomplish more with less.”

Wafer’s assignment at FDNC, an NGO started by Sam Watulatsu, was “to work with and train the community health workers and also provide capacity building and technical support; to assist FDNC staff and carry out community health sensitization programs; to strengthen FDNC’s linkages and partnerships with other health promotions and care organizations in Mbale; and to work with the FDNC Nurse, board of directors, and CEO to build organizational capacity in clinic management, health education, preventive healthcare, and outreach.”

This may sound a bit abstract on paper, but the needs are anything but. As Wafer describes the situation, Uganda is still trying to rebuild what wars have collapsed. Even though Uganda has reduced the overall rate of HIV prevalence, the specter of underreporting hovers close. “AIDS has affected everyone here,” Wafer says, suggesting that deaths without diagnoses are common. “In some communities I visited, eight of every ten deaths is AIDS-related. There are many graves in people’s yards, and many villages where there are only poor grandparents with the [orphaned] grandchildren.”

  The pandemic is exacerbated by a number of factors. In Mbale, the doctor/patient ratio is one for every 80,000 people—twenty in all—and few doctors are trained in HIV disease management. Stigma is not unknown, and Wafer attests that women feel its negative effects more than men: “Women can be driven from their homes if the husband dies and many have no way of generating income to feed and educate their children. Women who are HIV-negative—after their husbands have died from AIDS—often want to be positive to receive free food and other services; they return over and over for repeat HIV testing.”

“The problems are basic, yet the cure is so far away for most,” Wafer says. She got a unique perspective of the pandemic when she went on a clinic outreach to Iki Iki, a village with about 200 patients, with The AIDS Support Organization. “TASO must go to the villages because most people can’t afford transportation to the hospital....At the end of the clinic, as we were packing and preparing to leave, a woman who was HIV-positive showed up with one of her children, a four-year-old girl. 

“The girl had a fever, shortness of breath, obviously underdeveloped—she appeared to be about two-and-a-half. Children are not tested for HIV; if the mother is positive and the child becomes sick, they are treated. The doctor wanted to admit the child. The meds would be provided at no cost, but the mother had no transportation to the hospital and no money for food or gloves once the child was admitted. That made me realize how poverty and hunger drive deaths in the pandemic. I did offer to have the mother and child return with me to town, and I gave her what I had in my pocket for food.”

The Fellows who have returned, like Deborah, “have been touched both personally and professionally. They’ve come back with so many new attributes,” says Atiya Ali. “Deborah came back with dreads. She looks great!” The connection made, she implies, goes beyond the cosmetic. The Fellows, she says, “learn about AIDS hands-on” and are emboldened to continue to make a difference in the world.

For more information about Global Health Fellows, log on to www.pfizerphilanthropy.com.

Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U.

April 2005