New York — It began as a project to provide primary eye care to rural South Africans, launched by the optometry department of Rand Afrikaans University and Transnet, a parastatal transportation company that manages the national airline and railroad. When it made it's first trip in 1994, the train had three cars. Today it has 16, with more being added.
Last week at the historic Capitale restaurant in New York's Bowery district, 400 "Friends of Phelophepa" came together to celebrate the project and to contribute to its support. Phelophepa is a coined word referring to the train's mission to deliver "good, clean health." Chaired by Dr. Franz B. Humer, the CEO of the Swiss-based Roche pharmaceutical company, the dinner raised an estimated $600,000.
Humer said in an interview that Roche, which became involved with Phelophepa in its early days, has seen the project develop, over the nine years since, "into something extremely important for us." The train has expanded into a versatile primary care facility, covering more than nine thousand miles of track and treating over 180,000 patients annually. Colgate sponsors a dental clinic that occupies one-and-a-half carriages.
Plans for 2004 include the addition of cars for oncology and diabetes care, diseases that sometimes get short shrift in South Africa, because of the prominence of Aids, Humer says. He says the central importance of the venture is that it treats rural people who would not otherwise see a doctor.
Project manager Lillian Cingo, an award-winning neurosurgical nurse and counseling psychologist, called Phelophepa "a lifeline to survival and to hope for a better future" for the people it reaches. Counting the medical students and volunteers it has trained, as well as the patients, the train has touched over a million people, she said.
Lynette Coetzee, who manages health projects for the Transnet Foundation, called the train a product of the "miracle" of South African democracy. A sense of patriotism and of multi-racial collaboration, she said, inspired the train and has fueled its growth. But she said the project's success has caused it to outgrow the capacity of its current supporters to fund it. The dinner was a step towards creating a diverse and expanding donor base to keep the train running.
The event was chaired by C. Payne Lucas, the recently retired head of Africare, who evoked the picture of thousands of people in hundreds of villages, waiting for the train. In its short life, he said, the project "has turned an unthinkable health delivery system into a reality." The challenge now, he said, is to assemble the resources to make that reality sustainable. "Phelophepa is a statement in humanity," he said, and the South African example should be an inspiration for similar efforts elsewhere.
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The dinner's guests of honor, recognized for their contributions to African health, were James E. Copeland, former chief executive officer of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and Deval L. Patrick and Alexander B. Cummings, Jr. of Coca-Cola. The three were cited for their personal as well as their corporate commitments to African concerns.
The evening ended with a flourish, as Tony award winning tap dancer Savion Glover danced for nearly forty minutes, backed by the Soweto Sound Machine. The star of Spike Lee's film Bamboozled and the creator of Broadway hits like "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk," performed an original piece, "Keeping 'da Phelophapa Train on Track," choreographed especially for the event.
Roche's Humer, while acknowledging the need for a wider circle of supporters, pledged that his company would continue to back the project. One of its appeals, he said, is that contributing to Phelophepa is "not giving to an organization who then distributes it to somebody else who distributes it further down. I see that the money actually does something and does it directly." This real, measurable impact, the treatment of more than half a million people, "is why I'm so committed to supporting it."
