Medical Supplier

Woman of the Year Nominee

May 1, 2008

While visiting the village of Nitgo in the West African country of Burkina Faso, Nell Diallo noticed children at home in the middle of the day instead of at school. The nearest school was 60 miles away. When government representatives told her there were no funds to build a one-room school and a home for a teacher, Diallo had a proposition: If she came up with the funds, would the government build the school? When told, "Yes," she got to work.

While having tea with several wives of diplomats, Diallo, who also is married to a diplomat, Ismael Diallo, a representative of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights in Burundi, brought up the idea of a fundraiser for the school. They loved the idea, but weren't sure how to go about raising money.
 
"Most people want to do good, they just don't know how," says Diallo, executive director of MedShare International, an Atlanta-based nonprofit medical supply recovery organization that recycles and distributes surplus, unused medical supplies and equipment to economically developing countries. Oftentimes, Diallo finds that those with everything don't know how to use what they have to help people. "The big problem is to marry the two," Diallo says.

The women raised the money and a school was built. Diallo has hobnobbed with prime ministers, first ladies, vice presidents and their wives. She's hosted delegations from a number of African countries. She's served as a consultant to UNICEF and other organizations in Africa. She's also visited villages in the middle of nowhere and learned that the impoverished don't always need people from developed countries to tell them how to live a better life. "Their lives have taught them what's needed," says Diallo, adding that they develop a kind of common sense and
intuition in response to the harshness of their conditions. "We should see them as partners, not as people who need someone to come tell them something," adds Diallo. "There are so many human elements that exist in these so-called primitive societies that we could learn from."

Diallo earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Miles College in Birmingham, Ala., and later a law degree at Antioch School of Law. While working as a junior biochemist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., she founded Black Scientists to encourage more African-American women to pursue careers in science. Throughout her career she found ways to improve the plight of women and minorities albeit
with an entrepreneurial flair.

In Burkina Faso she established projects to improve health care and education with her self-created women's foundation. In the Congo she co-founded a boutique/training center for impoverished women. When Diallo discovered that the Latin American corporation Banacol Columbia shipped bananas to the United States in large containers that are subsequently returned to Columbia empty, she had an idea. Why not fill those containers with much needed medical supplies before they're shipped back to Columbia? Diallo approached Banacol's leadership. If the company provided funding for shipping, MedShare would send $100,000 worth of medical supplies and equipment for use in Columbia's banana-producing areas. MedShare would also send an engineer to evaluate area hospitals and
later help upgrade them. "Nell understood very well what was needed," explains Jorge Correa, former president, of Corbanacol, the social foundation arm of Banacol. "She is
doing very, very good work."

To date, MedShare has shipped three 40-foot containers of supplies to Columbia and is working on establishing a similar program in Costa Rica. Diallo is also talking to The Boeing Co., hoping that when a Boeing plane is delivered to Angola early next year, it will be filled with medical supplies. Diallo wants to develop a portfolio of companies willing to partner with MedShare in this way. Diallo also negotiated with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative to have the foundation fund a shipment of containers to Ethiopia. The initial shipments should reach 25 to 30 of the country's 3,000 rural clinics. Diallo grew up in Alabama. Her mother taught school, and her father ran a garage. Her grandfather often told her she could do everything but sing. "I grew up thinking that," she said, "it made me not timid about going after things or
going toward people."

One of the things she knew she wanted to do when she grew up was travel. To date, Diallo has visited 30 countries.