Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact.
The next series of Purpose 360 episodes were taped in person on site at the One Young World Summit that was held in Montreal this year. For those of you who are not familiar with One Young World, I hope that these conversations will get you very, very excited to follow them online because they are making terrific impact around the globe. At the conference, there were nearly 2,000 changemakers. And you have to apply to get accepted to this amazing event. And some leaders at the conference say, "You know, it's harder to get into this conference than it is to get into Harvard." Wow. The young ambassadors represented 190 countries, and you should think of this like the Olympics for changemaking. Also in attendance were leaders across the board, around the world. Think older individuals like myself, who have worked in the field for so many years helping to make change.
I have this amazing group of individuals to talk about something that it will touch every single one of our listeners' lives. It's called Project Oscar. And with us today is its creator, Oscar Anderson, and then a group of amazing individuals, Patty O'Hayer. She's the Global Head of External Affairs and Social Impact from Reckitt. We have Oscar, of course. We have Oscar's father, Charles Anderson. And we have Her Excellency, Toyin Saraki, who is the President and Founder of Wellbeing Foundation Africa. So welcome. Why don't we just start out with the idea, where did it come from? Patty, can you start and then we'll ask Oscar to join in?
Patty O'Hayer:
Sure. Well, I had the distinct privilege and honor to meet Oscar here at One Young World. Gosh Oscar how many years ago? Probably six or seven years ago. And I heard Oscar speak and I was so inspired by his story and I said to myself, "Okay, One Young World is all about impact. So what am I going to do now that I have met this incredible young man and heard his story?" And it's a story that touched me mostly because I'm not a GP, I'm not a doctor, but I realized that the condition that Oscar has is completely preventable. And so that's when I said that if I could marshal the resources of my company, and my organization and my network, that we could have a real and meaningful impact.
Carol Cone:
And why don't you just jump into about jaundice and that how many babies around the world are born with jaundice and with a very simple and inexpensive treatment with light that these babies can have just a wonderful life.
Patty O'Hayer:
I mean, jaundice is incredibly common and in the west, it's not something that we think is a very debilitating disease. Both my children were born with jaundice and they had the great privilege and honor to have immediate treatment, so to put them under a light box. And in that instance then they were able to fully recover and did not have the lasting impact that we see in Oscar's condition. So there are millions of children. And it goes up to 80% of children if born prematurely, will suffer some levels of bilirubin, the presence of red blood cells that don't break down properly and which causes kernicterus and can then translate into cerebral palsy, which can be devastating.
Carol Cone:
Great. So I'd love to ask Oscar, I know that in 2017 he was here and he was on the stage and the idea for Project Oscar began to germinate.
Oscar Anderson:
Basically I was born in Saigon, Vietnam. According to my parents, they took me back the hospital and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me and my parents basically went on a hospital tour of Vietnam. It�s one of the most under reported in the world. And basically, the main goal of Project Oscar is to stop what happened to me happening to others.
Patty O'Hayer:
And it's incredible hearing Oscar's story about being born in Saigon, in Vietnam and unfortunately was not diagnosed with neonatal jaundice. And the results is something that his entire family have had to manage and change their whole lives around and it's completely preventable. And so what we did with Project Oscar is we worked with the Anderson's and the Ministry of Health and we provided light boxes to all the rural hospitals in Vietnam and then did a training course for the nurses and the healthcare professionals such that they understood how to diagnose neonatal jaundice, such that we could have a significant impact in terms of reducing the incidence of undetected. As Oscar says, one of the most under reported diseases with devastating consequences.
Carol Cone:
Which is amazing to have that sort of impact with such a simple device. But as Oscar has said, education is the first thing that has to happen because healthcare professionals did not know of the relationship.
Oscar Anderson:
[inaudible 00:09:07]. And it's something I don't know [inaudible 00:09:57]. It's an organization that my mother [inaudible 00:10:08] when I diagnosed, just basically an organization run by mothers in America who have kids with [inaudible 00:10:40] and they partnered up with a professor from the University of Kansas called Steven Shapiro, and the [inaudible 00:11:04] changed the law in America. So that basically every child is tested for jaundice.
Patty O'Hayer:
And that's what we're calling for in the presentation. And then I know Her Excellency is going to talk specifically about Nigeria because Vietnam is just the tip of the iceberg. When we look at it, we realize that the number of countries and specifically countries across Africa that are also facing... When you think about somebody of Caucasian skin, it's easier to diagnose jaundice because of the yellowing nature of the skin. But if you talk about a child of color, so from East Asia or from Africa, it's much more difficult to identify. So that's when we joined forces with the Wellbeing Foundation Africa and Her Excellency to really look at this. And when we looked at it, I think to both of our surprise, Nigeria ranked as the number one country where culturally children were shunned. And this isn't something that's talked about, it's taboo.
Oscar Anderson:
Most people with disabilities in Asia and Africa, they�re just locked away and there are far more in orphanages. I think around 9 or 10 years ago we visited an orphanage in China in Shenzhen. And it was basically run by an elderly disabled woman who was giving disabled kids a home. And I visited the home and the, frankly the conditions were a little shabby but otherwise manageable. And basically, there was a girl in one of the rooms and she was about four or five inches. I can�t remember exactly, but basically, she was really uncomfortable. When I saw the girl, I asked my parents if I could lie with her on the ground. And basically I started to do my exercises with her to help. I think people like that are treated like shit. And I think what I want to do is [inaudible] which is love and gives them the advantages in life that they deserve.
Carol Cone:
Thank you. Your Excellency, can you talk about the evolution now of Project Oscar and the breadth of the work that's going to be done in Nigeria?
Princess Toyin Saraki:
It's really, really interesting. When I first met Oscar with Patty in November 2023, that was the first time I realized that I had met about 200 Oscars previously, but I didn't know that the cause was jaundice. In 2006, I received a donation of pediatric wheelchairs and decided to give them out on Children's Day, 27th of May. But I didn't know who I was going to give them to, so I put the word out that I had these wheelchairs for distribution, and I was stunned when families that I knew very, very well all showed up at the amusement park with disabled children. Some of them were in wheelbarrows. And these were families I knew, while I didn't know they had disabled children. So I started asking them, "Where did you bring this child from?" And they said, "Well, the child has been at home." They were hidden. And I realized that when people have disabled children at home, they don't have where to get help, so they hide them. But I still didn't know the cause was jaundice.
When I met Oscar in November, and Charles and Sarah told me the story and I realized it was jaundice, an ailment that 60% of normal children develop and get over, and 80% of premature children develop and it's more dangerous. And if it's not detected and if it's not treated by a simple light box. It can give you lifelong debilitating and even deadly conditions. It became a compulsion to do something about it. And we took courage from the fact that Reckitt had done this in Vietnam, but it's a lot more dangerous in children of Black and minority ethnicities and people of color because you can't see the jaundice. You have to be trained to look for it. And we did a survey that showed us that only 69.5% of mothers in southwest Nigeria did not know the signs of jaundice and demonstrated little to no knowledge of how to treat this.
So we got together and we're not starting the program from scratch. We're using existing evidence, existing research, and most excitingly new tools that can actually photograph the skin of a newborn of color and tell us whether it looks like jaundice. We're measuring that against the old serum bilirubin tests, and we're taking an entire state in Nigeria inspired by Oscar. We are training 10,000 mothers in the first phase. We're going to screen over 9,000 infants in the first phase, that we actually started in April with the pre-learning work. We've chosen 300 healthcare workers who will be trained in recognizing the signs and symptoms of neonatal jaundice and also treating it promptly. We've selected six tertiary healthcare facilities, teaching hospitals, and they will be equipped with phototherapy machines from the program and BiliStrips and the blood tests. And we're also extending right from day one to primary healthcare facilities because that's where the problems present.
Now my aim as we light up Nigeria, starting with Lagos state, inspired by Oscar. And I know I'm very tearful because I've been a mother of premature babies myself and meeting Oscar, when you come from a country where parents hide disabled children was the compulsion to remove that hiding and make this work. But if we can interrupt the cycle of neonatal jaundice and kernicterus, cerebral palsy and long-standing brain damage within day three and day eight, and if we can move the WHO to a policy of providing every hospital with a light box, and if we can move the practice of medical facilities to testing every child before discharge, we can actually prevent this disability.
And for those that have the disability, as you can see, Oscar's very coherent. He knows what he wants. He's the inspiration behind this. I'd also like to give a shout-out for disability rights where people with disabilities have to be respected, their autonomy and their being their own agents of transformation also has to be recognized. So I'm very excited for this program in Nigeria.
Carol Cone:
That's wonderful. That's extraordinary. I'd like the two of you to talk about your relationship and how that is developed. Oh, you're there laughing and Oscar's laughing too. So everyone here is smiling. It's a wonderful relationship.
Princess Toyin Saraki:
Well relationship. Where did we meet? So yes, every year we go to Davos separately, and every year Davos is full of very, very big meetings with very, very important people. But one particular year, I think it was 2020 just before the lockdown, I got a very tiny invitation to a very, very tiny meeting.
So I go to this meeting and I'm sitting, listening in the corner and Patty begins to speak, and the more she's speaking, I'm just thinking, I like this lady's practical approach. Everything is evidence-based, but she's not here bamboozling us with what in Nigeria we call big English. She's just saying it. Yeah, she's saying it as it is. And I was not actually slated to speak at that meeting, but when I meet somebody that I like the look of, the minute they say any questions from the floor, like a typical Nigerian, I'm the first... I'm like a Nigerian at a visa queue, so I'm the first to leap up, put my hand up. So I put my hand up and I said, "Yes." I said, "Thank you very much for everything you were saying about HIV, but what about water sanitation and hygiene? Because this is what is preventing girls from going to school and menstrual hygiene and they can't go to the toilet because it's not safe." And she said, "We must talk later."
And then I can't remember when the later occurred, but this relationship has led to some very solid implementations. Our hygiene quest program has taken what I originally started as a small personal social and health education program because I believed in hand washing to a full three state program, reaching over 200 health facilities, over 300 schools and hundreds and thousands of children and pregnant women across Nigeria. We are hoping that having taken a whole state approach to the neonatal jaundice and kernicterus program, and I keep emphasizing the kernicterus because if you don't prevent or treat neonatal jaundice, you do end up with kernicterus. And I want people to know the word kernicterus. I want it to be a household name. I'm hoping that what we do with this in Lagos in phase one will lead to a policy change, not just across the country, but also globally. And we've never failed in anything we've partnered on yet.
Patty O'Hayer:
The call to action in taking this practical approach, we're calling on everybody here at One Young World to sign a letter to Dr. Tedros, who is head of the WHO, to change the policy such that every child before they get released from hospital is tested for kernicterus and jaundice. And so therefore, by that way, we will make it a standard, kind of like the way the Apgar score is now when children are born. And if we can do that, then I think then we change the fate of millions of children in the world and make sure that they reach their full potential as they should.
Carol Cone:
That's great. Anything else you'd like to add, Patty?
Patty O'Hayer:
If you asked me five years ago, would I be leading or partnering in a program around neonatal jaundice, I would say no. So I can only say that the inspiration is all Oscar's. What's been critically important for me is he's the face of the issue. We're bombarded every day by stats and by things that need to change in the world, whether it's climate change, whether it's... But Oscar and his advocacy and his determination to use his voice and to be heard, I am merely the voice box for Oscar. And it's only through his inspiration and through the great partnership. I tell Toyin all the time that I never would try something in Nigeria without somebody like Toyin, because I'll tell you what, nothing's going to get in her way.
Carol Cone:
One quick question, which is any advice for the other young delegates here, the change makers? This was an amazing idea that came about because of this organization. Any insight or any suggestions?
Patty O'Hayer:
I think people woefully underestimate the impact that they can have in the world. And I tell often people in my team and to Toyin's team, "Of course it's hard. If it were easy, somebody else would've already done it." So therefore I embrace the hard and it's just a matter of, okay, let's peel back the onion and figure out how we're going to get through this. But with great inspiration from these two amazing leaders, I'm just the Sherpa that's carrying their bags.
Carol Cone:
One other question for corporate philanthropists, CSR programs or such, this commitment is not core to what Reckitt's been doing. It's something that is special for you. My question is about when you find something so special, then taking your values and your commitment to helping the world, you embraced it.
Patty O'Hayer:
Well, what I would say is that I think in terms of... First of all, I don't believe in philanthropy. I think that's for rich people to ease their consciousness. I believe in delivering impact. And what that means is there is a return on every investment that I make. That return is what I call value creation.
Carol Cone:
Yes.
Patty O'Hayer:
And I believe that quite frankly, if I tell the story of my GM, my general manager in Vietnam, when I approached him on this, I said to myself, "Okay, I need a few advocates to help me here." And one of the things that he said to me, "Okay, Patty, neonatal jaundice, never thought of that. Okay, tell me more." And I said, "It's going to be easy. This is what we're going to do." But I said, "We need a couple things. One is I need your support and buy-in first." He said, "Okay, you've got it." "Two, I need the Ministry of Health to buy-in," because without the Ministry of Health, you can't do anything in a country. So we went and met with the Ministry of Health, and they said, "Okay."
And then he said to me afterwards, long after we mapped out the program, we decided light boxes, how much it was going to cost, how many light boxes, how many hospitals and did the education part of it. He said to me, "Patty, every medical professional in Vietnam knows Reckitt now." And he said, "Because we came in and we didn't ask for anything, we offered our support." We gave first. And he said, "For the next 20 years, that's going to pay dividends to the company," because we identified an issue and we partnered with the government and we delivered a solution.
Carol Cone:
You made it happen.
Patty O'Hayer:
So that's value creation for me, and that's why I don't believe in philanthropy. But you're absolutely right. It's finding that sweet spot of how you can create value for your enterprise, for your company in a way. And if it is strategic, it's easier.
Carol Cone:
That's great. Toyin, would you like to add anything to that?
Princess Toyin Saraki:
Yes. I would say, well, I do believe in philanthropy, and it's philanthropy that put myself and Patty together in the first place. But I don't see philanthropy as charity. I see philanthropy as an investment in human capital, and I'm always on a search for solutions.
Carol Cone:
That's fabulous.
Princess Toyin Saraki:
And when I find those solutions, I always need the technical partners as well. So in this particular project, we've got the London School of Tropical Medicines, NEST 360, who have put together low resource solutions that work at the front line. It's all about Oscar. I will keep saying it. Oscar is the ultimate philanthropist. It's very easy in life if you have a problem and you found something to mitigate that situation, just to stay at home and manage yourself. And the ultimate gift that Oscar has given, the hundreds and thousands and millions of Nigerian children who will be born with jaundice, will develop jaundice in the first week of life, and for whom we will interrupt that jaundice and stop it from being kernicterus as he's given himself.
Carol Cone:
He has.
Princess Toyin Saraki:
So from my philanthropic effort, it's to put the partners together, the private sector, the government, the researchers, the equipment manufacturers. But I want to say thank you to Oscar. I promised him the first time we met that what happened to him, I would work with him to make sure it didn't happen to Nigerian children. And we always say that if we can win a war in Nigeria, we can win a war across the world because of our 260 million population. So I'm looking forward to receiving Oscar in Nigeria, and I'm looking forward to thanking his parents, Charles and Sarah, for helping Oscar to be public and for making sure that we can stop this cycle for other children.
Carol Cone:
That's beautiful. Will Oscar come for the unveiling for the December 3rd?
Oscar Anderson:
I have two words. Fuck yes.
Princess Toyin Saraki:
That's a yes. Welcome to Nigeria on December 3rd.
Carol Cone:
There you go. Yay. That's great. That's wonderful. Would you like Charles and Sarah, would you like to say it and add any this?
Princess Toyin Saraki:
Yes, please. Oh, please, Charles. Charles, you've done so much.
Charles Anderson:
When we came back to live in England after living for most of, well, up until then, all Oscar's life in Asia, Oscar was invited to One Young World in Dublin in 2014 by Kate. And he heard Caroline Casey speak, and she gave a very impressive presentation. And Oscar at the end of that said, "Dad, that's what I want to do. I want to speak out for kids in wheelchairs." He was 12 at the time. "And that's what I want to do." So he made a presentation at One Young World in Bangkok the following year, just talking about life for him as a kid in a wheelchair and what it was like and what he thought he wanted to convey, which was really, that he has more in common with other kids of his age than is different because he uses a wheelchair. So people shouldn't be frightened. They shouldn't be afraid. They should not look through him, not look past him. And they should, if they don't know what to say, they should say, I see you.
And there was a lot of help given to Thai mums in those days who came and said, "Thank you, Oscar. Now we know how to speak to our neighbor's child, to my niece, to my grandson." And everybody knows somebody who uses a wheelchair. So then Kate delivered her tour de force, Kate Robertson, the founder of One Young World, and said, "Oscar, that's great. It's good to speak out. Now you've got to do something. We're all about action."
Carol Cone:
Great.
Carol Cone:
Toyin, would you like to add anything?
Princess Toyin Saraki:
Yes, definitely. We're calling on both the delegates to sign our letter for light for life. Light for life, if it's accepted by the WHO and rolled out by countries, will put light boxes at point of care. So instead of having a referral, as soon as you spot jaundice, you can treat jaundice. I'm hoping actually that with the prevalence of jaundice in Nigeria, every child can have a light session before they're even discharged to go home. We can stop this. There are very few disabilities in life that can be prevented. Jaundice and kernicterus is one of them, and I think we have to make this happen.
Carol Cone:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Oscar. I know you'll keep going. And have a great time at the launch in Nigeria on December 3rd. We'll be thinking of you.
Patty O'Hayer:
Thank you.
Princess Toyin Saraki:
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Carol Cone:
This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark and Kristin Kenney at Carol Cone on Purpose. Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our Crack production team at TruStory FM. And you, our listener, please rate and rank us because we really want to be as high as possible, as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
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