Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
USIS Washington File - June 8, 2006
Mutombo, who plays with the Houston, Texas Rockets, came to the United States to study medicine, with the goal of returning home to help correct health problems.
While attending college at Georgetown University in Washington, the tall student was invited to try out for the university's basketball team. He not only was accepted onto the team, he later became a leading professional basketball player, a career that made him a star in the United States.
Having played basketball in the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA) for the better part of a decade, Mutombo has accumulated the celebrity and wealth to allow him to engage in charitable activities. While playing for a team in Atlanta, he visited hospitals, worked with the Special Olympics athletic program for young persons with cognitive disabilities, and supported the Zambian women's basketball and track teams' attendance at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Mutombo is active in the organization Basketball Without Borders and travels throughout Africa on behalf of the NBA. He is a spokesman for the international relief agency CARE, and he was the first youth emissary for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
He also works with the UNDP partner organization UNICEF, for which he and several other professional basketball stars have filmed televised public-service announcements
In 1997, Mutombo created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which is dedicated to the eradication of childhood diseases that are now rare in the developed world but that still threaten life in DRC.
Perhaps Mutombo's most impressive work has been to build into his basketball programs in Africa extensive community outreach and educational seminars addressing such important issues as HIV/AIDS.
The newspaper USA Weekend named Mutombo the 1999 Most Caring Athlete for his efforts to raise money to help support HIV/AIDS efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those efforts continue -- in 2006 Mutombo convinced the U.S. Congress to promise $2 million to fund clinics and health centers in his homeland.
The NBA was honored in May by the Global Business Alliance on HIV/AIDS for its role in promoting AIDS awareness and prevention in communities all around the world.
More information on the Dikembe Mutombo Foundaton is available on the foundation's Web site.
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