Athletes often play an important role in their team’s community and in their own hometowns, and that applies even more so to Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Tamba Hali.
Hali fled the civil war in Liberia when he was 10 years old to join his father in New Jersey. Although he hasn’t returned to his home country since then, Hali is lending his support to Liberia while it tries to contain an entirely different problem — an outbreak of Ebola.
The pass rusher joined officials from Heart to Heart International — a humanitarian relief organization based outside Kansas City — on Tuesday to announce the construction of an Ebola clinic near the Liberian capital of Monrovia. The clinic will house 70 beds for patients with the virus.
“Liberians are smart people, strident people,” Hali said via The Associated Press. “It was a beautiful country at one point, when I was very young. These are good people, God-fearing people, but this is a third-world country. They need help.”
Liberia has been one of the hardest-hit West African nations, with 3,834 confirmed cases of Ebola and 2,069 deaths as of Friday. Hali still has family in Liberia, but they’ve luckily avoided the outbreak.
“They’ve been fortunate,” Hali said. “My family that’s there hasn’t contracted Ebola.”
Heart to Heart founder Dr. Gary Morsch said that treatment clinics were one of the biggest needs in Liberia, and theirs will add to six that are already in the country. Per the AP, they estimate that construction will be finished in November, and that the clinic will cost about $1 million per month to operate.
Photo via Chris Humphreys/USA TODAY Sports Images
