The Young and the Generous

Meet the new generation of philanthropists. They’re young, they’re wealthy, and they don’t just write checks. They’re ready to roll up their sleeves, but — in return — they expect tangible results.

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Christopher Hamblett

The Foundation For West Africa

Since Christopher “Topher” Hamblett first spent time in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps worker digging wells and pit latrines in the mid-’80s, the distance between the coastal West African country and this side of the Atlantic has shortened considerably. Sure, the flying time is the same (about twelve hours), but now, when Hamblett is here, he can easily chat with his friends there via the Internet. More to the point, because of that computer connection, when he’s
puttering around his home in affluent Barrington, Hamblett is never really that far from the poverty, disease and suffering that have plagued Sierra Leone and its neighbor, Liberia, since a decade-long civil war.

Hamblett witnessed the devastation firsthand when he returned to the country in 2002, after the war ended. That trip inspired him to exploit the technological link from home to raise funds for a region still reeling from a brutal war that enlisted child soldiers, inflicted horrible atrocities and displaced roughly one-third of Sierra Leone’s population.

This year, The Foundation for West Africa (www.tfwa.org), the organization he founded in 2005, will invest some $200,000 to help heal ravaged communities. “Today, it’s much more possible to do work on behalf of a faraway place,” says Hamblett, forty-six. “You can actually connect donors and the recipients directly, like through digital photos. Fifteen, twenty years ago, this wouldn’t have been doable.”

West Africa is Hamblett’s second “cause” — for sixteen years, he advocated on behalf of Save the Bay, most visibly in front of State House lawmakers. The return trip to Sierra Leone rekindled an old passion, however, and Hamblett felt compelled to change course. The son of former Providence Journal publisher, the late Stephen Hamblett, Topher was financially able to support himself while he built a base for the foundation through his extensive network. Hamblett also worked his connections for in-kind donations, and scored a logo design, computer system setup and accounting services. By the end of this year, he may have raised enough money to actually pay himself a modest salary. 

In the meantime, his foundation has been trying to help stabilize the region by opening up the channels of communication. Hamblett works with Search for Common Ground, an international nonprofit focused on conflict resolution, to help fund the construction of radio stations, a crucial resource in isolated areas where people are cut off from news and have no way to work out the many lasting resentments from the war. “These stations provide accurate, meaningful information that allows people to make decisions about their lives, and that addresses issues of reconciliation,” Hamblett says.

As it happens, Hamblett’s foundation has a natural base of support among the estimated 15,000 Liberians who live in Rhode Island. While they too struggle with factionalism, many have accepted Hamblett’s foundation as a politically neutral vehicle for aiding in the rebuilding of their country.

Hamblett recently accepted a $500 contribution from a New England chapter of the National Association of Grand Cape Mountainians in support of a start-up radio station in the Liberian town of Sinje. Money is also starting to trickle in from West Africans living elsewhere in the U.S. “We’re filling a niche right now,” Hamblett says. “A modest amount of money can go a long way if put in the right hands. It’s our job to identify those individuals and groups that can really do good work.”