As was reported in today's New York Times:
BEDFORD, Va. — A Virginia woman is facing a lawsuit in Ugandan court accusing her nonprofit (Serving His Children) of operating in the country illegally and leading to the deaths of Ugandan children.
The News & Advance reports Renee Bach started the nonprofit Serving His Children in 2009, with centers to alleviate child malnutrition.
Now, a Ugandan court is accusing her of operating an illegal medical facility that's responsible for hundreds of children's deaths.
The suit was filed by the mothers of two children who reportedly died at a center. The suit accuses Bach of representing herself as a medical professional.
Of course this case is extremely nuanced beginning with one of those core questions about just how qualified any "outsider" is in plopping-into a foreign country to pursue a religious calling. But one of those nuances is who and where has been the board in all this. Yes, it is the NGO being sued but but Bach, the founder, is not without blame as part of the suit. Meanwhile it is noteworthy from me that the News and Advance stated:
In a May 2015 letter, the three-member board of directors for SHC said Bach “was planted in a sea of needs” in 2009, only providing medical care on her own in “emergency situations or where there was no immediate help available.” SHC spent $54,000 for “fees for outside medical treatments in the first 3 years,” they wrote.
In a March 2017 letter, SHC Vice President Nancy Powell said the organization had “taken steps to ensure greater oversight” following “the events of the past two years.”
She said Bach had stepped down from SHC’s board, stepped down as executive director and was a programs manager for non-medical programming in Uganda.
Further, Powell said SHC would be helping to open and run an inpatient malnutrition rehabilitation center at a government-run health care center in Uganda after discussions with its senior medical superintendent. That program, she wrote, would follow Ugandan law and healthcare guidelines from Unicef and the World Health Organization.
It is equally important to note the last part of the article cites race as a critical issue in what is going on with this story and while I understand the point of the "white and faith-based savior" "complex" at play, this still does not excuse a board which offered very little oversight until conditions, child deaths, had been mounting. Here's the racial issues outlined by News and Advance:
A sizeable component of the claims against Bach and SHC are rooted in race.
In her affidavit, lawyer and Women’s Probono Initiative officer Beatrice Kayaga said SHC's work mirrors a “belief that any white person irrespective of their academic status of training and social economic standing can offer aid to poor black minorities.”
That language echoes words from members of Ugandan activist group NoWhiteSaviors, which has repeatedly called for action against Bach and SHC on social media.
Fundraising by the group helped to pay for the legal costs of the lawsuit and activists with NoWhiteSaviors helped to identify witnesses, according to Kwagala.
Kelsey Nielsen and Olivia Alaso, the co-founders of NoWhiteSaviors, told The News & Advance in an email they first became aware of SHC in 2014 and confirmed they connected the Women’s Probono Initiative with funding for the lawsuit.
For sure, many issues are at play in this story but they begin, I believe, with a failure of the founder to assemble a board that would be "there" doing its fiduciary duty on behalf of the organization and its patients, first and foremost. This founder failed on many levels and the board is merely a mirror of these failings.