December 6, 2015

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Health December 6, 2015

In Gaza, Kids With Cancer Have 'Virtually No Care.' One Group Hopes To Help

An interior view of the plans for the Gaza children's cancer treatment center.
3:51

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An interior view of the plans for the Gaza children’s cancer treatment center. Courtesy of CEP Consultants hide caption

toggle caption Courtesy of CEP Consultants

The ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip has damaged hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities, leaving major gaps in health care.

Children with cancer, in particular, struggle to get the proper treatment they need. They often have to travel to Israel or much farther.

So one American nonprofit — called the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund — aims to change that. The PCRF is building a large new pediatric cancer center in Gaza.

“We found a significant gap in the services that are available in pediatric oncology and hematology. Our organization wants to address those, because children who are suffering from cancer have virtually no care at all in the Gaza Strip,” Steve Sosebee, co-founder and CEO of the group, tells NPR’s Lynn Neary.

“As you can imagine … the most basic chemotherapy, pain management, palliative care and so on being unavailable in Gaza is just a huge burden on the health care system, on the families and most importantly, on the patients.”

Interview Highlights

On the challenges children and their parents grapple with in Gaza

The problem facing children in Gaza far exceeds just the issue of cancer. Children in Gaza face food issues, face educational issues, face health care issues on a much larger scale than just cancer. And our organization addresses those issues.

On what kids with cancer in Gaza must do for treatment under current circumstances

Most of the kids are referred outside, if they’re able to get outside. There is no free access in and out of the Gaza Strip. You must have a permit from the Israeli army to leave the Gaza Strip.

Now, Israel does issue permits for humanitarian cases to leave and to go to Israeli hospitals for specialized oncological care. It’s an extremely long and bureaucratic process, and it’s also a very challenging one for the patients and for their families, because now, a new order just came down that children cannot travel with anyone under the age of 55. So it’s a big burden for the families. You can imagine that means the grandmother has to go.

On the challenges of building the center, given the political situation

Let me first give you a little bit of background. We built the first and only public pediatric cancer department in the West Bank, in Bethlehem, about two years ago. The problem is that those children in Gaza are unable to get out on a regular basis, therefore we need to build services for them in the Gaza Strip. About half of the population of Gaza are children. So it’s a very poor and impoverished land.

The challenges that we face are extreme. The political challenges are that getting equipment in is under the regulation and control of the Israeli military. The government in Gaza is run by Hamas, which the U.S. government deems as a terrorist organization, so there’s no contact with them. And getting things like cement in, getting drugs in is very challenging and extremely difficult.

On how far along in the construction process they are

We just finished the initial stages of the design being finalized, choosing a contractor, and we’ll start building before the end of this month. …

We hope, in the best-case scenario, that it will be done within one year. But unfortunately the circumstances now on the ground throughout the occupied territories is extremely volatile, and we do hope that the situation in Gaza will not deteriorate.

All we can do is try to provide services based on the needs of the people and not prevent the realities of working on the ground there to stop us from doing what our role and responsibility is, as a humanitarian organization — which is to look beyond politics, look beyond the religion and look strictly at the needs of the children there and try to serve those needs to the best of our ability.

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Business December 6, 2015

How Tech Billionaires Are Bypassing Charities To Target Their Philanthropy

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You may hear the words “impact investing” this week. It’s fast becoming the way a new generation of wealthy are choosing to invest in society. Chronicle of Philanthropy editor Stacy Palmer explains.

Transcript

LYNN NEARY, HOST:

It’s time once again for our regular segment, Words You’ll Hear. That’s where we try to understand stories we’ll be hearing about by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. This time, we’re looking at a phrase you’ll be hearing more about in the coming months – impact investing. That’s a new twist on philanthropy for the next generation of wealthy, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Here to talk about it is Stacy Palmer, she’s the editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Welcome to the show, Stacy.

STACY PALMER: Happy to join you.

NEARY: So what exactly is this impact investing, and how is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg using it?

PALMER: Impact investing is exactly what it sounds like. It’s investing, and the impact part is to say can we get some social good out of our investments?

NEARY: All right. And how is that different from what we think of as charitable giving or traditional charitable giving?

PALMER: It used to be that wealthy people would set up a foundation and most of the money would come out in grants. And because of federal law, they would end up giving about 5 percent of their assets every year to charities and 95 percent of their assets would be invested in anything that maximized returns. Now people started saying that 95 percent of money that’s being invested might not be invested in very good things, so let’s focus there, and let’s look at how we make sure that our investments are doing good.

NEARY: In reading about this, I came across some other, I thought, very intriguing descriptions of the way young entrepreneurs are approaching charitable giving – hacker philanthropy was one and philanthrocapitalism was another. Is there a real sea change going on?

PALMER: There’s an important change happening. And one of the things that’s been part of this conversation is how can we use the market to better advantage, and does it make sense to have nonprofits so separate from the market? Now, there are people who don’t think this is a great idea and are very concerned about it because they said the whole reason philanthropy and nonprofits exist is to correct what the market does wrong. But it’s for sure changing the way philanthropy works and thinks.

NEARY: And there are a lot of tax implications here too. What’s the IRS take on this?

PALMER: The IRS told foundations that we understand that there’s this big change going on. And it had a very strict standard that you really had to maximize your financial investments. So that IRS ruling saying we’re not going to take this strict stance was seen as a really big deal.

NEARY: And there are also critics who are saying that this is a way to protect wealth, and that if it is protected from taxation, there’s less money for government programs. Is there truth to that or?

PALMER: Absolutely. That’s a big concern that people have when they saw this Zuckerberg money that it just means less taxes. But it’s not necessarily sure that’s the case. A lot of it is going to be how it plays out and how it’s structured. It could well be that they pay traditional taxes. And as a matter of fact, they made a statement saying that they would be paying taxes just like everybody else.

NEARY: Are there any other examples of some of the nation’s most wealthy people who are doing similar kinds of philanthropic giving?

PALMER: Very much so. Pierre Omidyar is considered sort of the father of this idea, and he’s the founder of eBay. Laurene Powell Jobs is using her money this way. So it’s really become a very popular area. And all of us will be able to put our money into impact investments as well because a lot of financial companies are developing products that will be affordable for people to get with as little as $20 in an investment. So we’re all going to be hearing about impact investing for a long time.

NEARY: That was Stacy Palmer. She’s the editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Thanks so much for joining us, Stacy.

PALMER: Happy to be here.

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Sports December 6, 2015

This Week In Football

4:43

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Rachel Martin talks to Mike Pesca, host of Slate’s The Gist podcast, about football’s Carolina Panthers. They’ve had an eventful year on and off the field.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Time now for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MARTIN: The Carolina Panthers are on fire. They take on the New Orleans Saints this afternoon. And the Panthers are the favorite with a perfect record in this season, 11 and 0. Now, my question is how did this team that is only as old as the Backstreet Boys get to this place? Mike Pesca is the host of The Gist. He’s here to explain. Hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: The Backstreet Boys are older than 20.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

PESCA: Maybe they’re as old as when the Backstreet Boys got popular, you know?

MARTIN: OK, fine. What are you with the facts? I mean, come on.

PESCA: They’re five years older than Adele, OK?

MARTIN: Oh, that would have been good.

PESCA: They’re as old as Google, at least.

MARTIN: OK, fine. Point taken. How are we here? How are we here?

PESCA: I will tell you.

MARTIN: How are the Panthers at this place?

PESCA: Yeah, I will tell you. But first I want to note, if you represent NPR’s youth movement, we are really in trouble.

MARTIN: Can you lay off?

(LAUGHTER)

PESCA: So the Panthers have a great defense. They have a really great pass defense. The NFL these days is all about passing. And they have a good run defense. Other than the truly excellent Denver Broncos in the other conference, best defense in football. And then on offense, they don’t have much. But the one thing they have is Cam Newton. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Maybe you’ve seen him in yogurt commercials.

MARTIN: I dig him.

PESCA: And I kind of love Cam Newton.

MARTIN: Me too.

PESCA: Statistically, I don’t know that he rises above a lot of NFL quarterbacks. But I think he’s particularly suited to do what the Panthers need him to do.

MARTIN: He also just looks like he’s having so much fun every time he’s on – that’s what I pay attention to. I mean, yeah, throw passes…

PESCA: Yes, no, I think – well, listen…

MARTIN: There’s joy, Mike, there’s joy.

PESCA: There is a joie de Cam.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

PESCA: And I think that maybe we could look at that as a something like leadership or something like confidence because, you know, he’s a great running quarterback. And the trend in the NFL was to – for years and years – just passing. And then a bunch of quarterbacks who could hurt the other team with their legs came in. But guess what? Those guys also tended to get hurt more often ’cause they put themselves in harm’s way. And so you have quarterbacks like Robert Griffin III not even playing this year and Colin Kaepernick also cut. So that trend of these hybrid quarterbacks sort of went away, except for Cam Newton. He’s so big. He’s so strong. Also, by necessity, he has to do it. His running is great. And the thing I want to point out is Cam – with Cam is that even though his passing statistically isn’t good, I watch a lot of his games. He throws the ball extremely accurately. And his receivers – I don’t know if they’re listening to Snoop Dogg or what, but they drop it like it’s hot. They have guys like Ted Ginn Jr., who almost lead the league in drops. And he has almost no one to throw to. So how do you – he has a good tight end, Greg Olsen – but among his receivers, they’re bad. His two offensive tackles are bad, so Cam’s always having to run around, getting away from coverage. That guy is more important to his team than any player, and I include Tom Brady in that assessment.

MARTIN: Whoa.

PESCA: Cam Newton – without Cam Newton, they would not be close to 11 and 0. They might not even be a winning team.

MARTIN: OK, can we see a Panthers-Pats Super Bowl?

PESCA: You know what’s interesting? Both of those two teams – Carolina and New England – are not named after cities or states. Interesting. That would be a cool Super Bowl. I think that the – actually the Patriots have a better chance to get there. They’re just a better team. The thing that the Panthers have going for them is their conference is sort of weak, especially related to the AFC. So I would say right now, the Panthers are the most likely in their conference to make the Super Bowl. But I still don’t know if I would say, quote, unquote, “likely.” I wouldn’t say they’re the odds-on favorite.

MARTIN: OK, you got a curveball?

PESCA: Sure. Let’s go to the world of luge.

MARTIN: Let’s.

PESCA: Now, I don’t have to tell you this is the – this is a sport that we only pay attention to once a quadrennial. And let’s face it, do we really pay attention? Well, we pay attention, in the United States, if our players – if our athletes do well. And in the World Championship of luge, the American women swept the podium. I will read you the three names of the medalists – Erin Hamlin, Emily Sweeney and Summer Britcher, which I think is a kind of odd but funny name for a luge/winter athlete. But way to go, USA.

MARTIN: Go ladies.

PESCA: Exactly.

MARTIN: Go USA. Mike Pesca, the host of The Gist on slate.com. Thanks, Mike.

PESCA: You’re welcome.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.