Dan Kelly
FROM:
I was born in Maryland, and grew up outside Annapolis, then outside Philadelphia, where much of my extended family resides. I've been on the move since.
HEROES:
Bailor Barrie. A partner. Coming from a poor Sierra Leonean family and succeeding is a modern-day Cinderella story. I admire how he championed medical school during a civil war, and now as a doctor, he plans to change his country. Paul Farmer. A mentor. He turned a grassroots organization into a global health mogul, and impacts academia to public policy. He challenges what is possible. Che Gueverra. An inspiration. I admire how he believed finding a passion leads to a distraction-free life.
PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT:
Presenting our clinic's milestones after one-year of operations, and inspiring youth to become involved in our work.
SOMETHING YOU MIGHT TEACH AT THE SUMMIT:
(1) How youth can turn a passion into an international grassroots campaign. (2) How I did it in global health and lessons I’ve learned.
SOMETHING YOU HOPE TO LEARN AT THE SUMMIT:
(1) What is possible from our generation. (2) How our futures may connect. (3) New insights into my work.
SOMETHING YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH IN YOUR WORK:
I don't have giant contacts, and I don't want to solicit friends and family. I'm trying to learn how to run an effective fund-raising campaign, and wonder, "Can I apply for bailout funds too?"
SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY:
Change, doctoring, finishing a new project, mentoring, bonding with new friends, reuniting with good friends and family, intimacy.
SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU ANGRY:
In Sierra Leone and other developing countries, religious organizations offer destitute people hope. Most don't realize some institutions also offer free and exclusive social services to converts. We have employees convert so that they can send their children to school. Theological entrepreneurship sounds like an ethical controversy.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAMILY:
My parents met in the Philadelphia suburbs, married in England, and backpacked around the world. They returned to raise my sister and me. After thirty-five years of marriage, they divorced.
AN IDEA TO MAKE THE 30SUMMIT EVEN BETTER:
Make it annual with a mentorship program.
BIOGRAPHY:
Dan Kelly, MD, is founder and executive director of Global Action Foundation, a health‐focused non‐profit providing positive community change for Sierra Leone's amputated civilians through social entrepreneurship. Dan is also co‐founder and chairperson of Wellbody. In 2008, his grassroots organization opened a primary care clinic that delivered health care in over 4,000 patient visits. Dan graduated from Princeton University with a degree in chemistry and a certificate of studies in Spanish language and culture. He received his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a post‐graduate, internal medicine resident at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Dan left for Sierra Leone with the support of Albert Einstein's Global Health Fellowship after his third year of medical school. Dan is honored with Global Health Education Consortium's "Velji Global Health Project of the Year" Award and Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s "Albert S. Kuperman Award for Field Work in Global Health."
