Honored with USA Weekend Magazine’s “Most Caring Athlete Award,” NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean Jacques Mutombo of the Houston Rockets has long been dedicated to improving the health, education and quality of life for the people in his birthplace, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Created in 1997, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation is attempting to eradicate many childhood diseases that have virtually disappeared in developed countries while those diseases are still life threatening to children in the Congo everyday.

Having played basketball in the NBA for the better part of a decade, Mutombo spends the off-season traveling throughout Africa on behalf of the NBA, performing at free basketball clinics for as many as 2,000 children per day. Giving back has always been a trademark of Mutombo ever since he entered the NBA in 1991. As spokesman for CARE, the international relief agency, Mutombo visited the Somali refugee camps in Northern Kenya in 1993 and traveled with NBA Commissioner David Stern and Georgetown colleagues Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
In 1996, Mutombo paid for the Zairian women’s basketball team’s trip to Atlanta for the Olympics and also picked up the tab for the track team’s uniforms and expenses.
Recently, Mutombo and Hall of Famer Bob Lanier led a contingent of current and former players who served as coaches for the Basketball Without Borders Africa initiative, which took place September 6-10 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was second year of the program and the 100 participants were selected from more than 20 countries in Africa, based on their basketball skills, leadership abilities and dedication to the sport. In addition to the on-court instruction, the program featured extensive community outreach and incorporates educational seminars addressing important social issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and education.
The highlight of the trip was the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation’s dedication of refurbished dormitories at Ithuteng Trust, a school for troubled and underprivileged youth in Soweto that Mutombo first visited during the summer of 2003 for the first Basketball Without Borders camp. Children who once slept on the floor and did not have bathrooms now have a safe and comfortable place to live.
Dikembe Mutombo is the first Youth Emissary for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and as an Atlanta Hawk; he was actively involved with Strong STARTS (Schools Taking Action to Reach Troubled Students). He also served as a spokesman for the Atlanta Hawks Team Up program, often visiting children at local hospitals and held a basketball clinic with on-court drills for the Georgia Special Olympic athletes.
In August 1999, Mutombo and his delegation traveled to Kinshasa, DR Congo on a medical fact-finding mission.
As part of the Polio Eradication Campaign in the Congo, Mutombo administered oral polio vaccine to newborns at the Kalembe-Lembe Pediatric hospital and distributed t-shirts with a written personal message encouraging parents to get their children immunized. Despite civil unrest and electricity cuts during the two weeks of the National Immunizations Days, 8.2 million children under the age of five were successfully vaccinated against polio in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
About DIKEMBE MUTOMBO:
Born in the capital city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mutombo is the seventh of ten children born to Samuel and the late Biamba Marie Mutombo. He arrived in the United States in 1987 on an academic scholarship to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. As a pre-med major, his dream was to become a medical doctor and return to the Congo to practice medicine. In his second year at Georgetown, Coach John Thompson invited the 7’2” Mutombo to try out for the university’s renowned basketball team. After joining the team, Mutombo re-directed his academic ambitions and graduated from Georgetown with dual degrees in Linguistics and Diplomacy. Mutombo is fluent in nine languages, including five African languages.
The Denver Nuggets drafted Mutombo after his graduation from Georgetown and, in 1996, Mutombo signed a five-year free agent contract with the Atlanta Hawks. On February 22, 2001, Mutombo joined the Philadelphia 76ers where the team advanced to the 2001 NBA Finals for the first time since 1983.

Mutombo is a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and ranks 1st in NBA rebounds per game. In August 2002, he joined the New Jersey Nets and that team advanced to the Finals in 2003. In late 2004, Mutombo joined the Houston Rockets.

Honors and awards:
Recently nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Wilt Chamberlain Award - Operation Smile.
Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters - State University of New York College at Cortland, NAACP Phoenix Award, The Henry Iba Citizen Athlete Award, The President’s Service Award (2000), the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, the Ernie Davis Humanitarian Award, The Samuel J. Halsey Award and the Constituency for Africa’s Trailblazer Award. Mutombo has been named ABC’s Person of the Week, Essence Magazine’s 2001 Achiever, and Sporting News’ No. 1 Good Guy. Mutombo has been featured in Europe’s TIME magazine, Sports Illustrated for Kids, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Houston Chronicle. Mutombo also serves on the Advisory Board for the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health. He has been the Chairman and President of the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation since 1997.

During the NBA’s regular season, Mutombo and his wife, Rose (also from Congo) maintain a home in a quiet Philadelphia suburb with their seven children (four of whom are Mutombo’s adopted nieces and nephews). During the off-season, the Mutombo’s reside in Atlanta, Georgia.