Our Team
Dr. Fred Oola
The Child is Innocent was founded in 2004 by Dr. Fred Oola, a young physician from Northern Uganda who grew up in the dire context of Uganda’s civil war. Fred had the good fortune to obtain sponsorship to attend boarding school from foreign donors and subsequently gained admission to medical school. Now a practicing physician in Northern Uganda, Fred is acutely aware of how fortunate he was and is committed to creating the same opportunity he benefited so much from for other children from his home. This commitment inspired him to found
The Child is Innocent with his colleagues in the United States.
Dr. Kevin Schwartz
Kevin Schwartz, MD is a Pediatric Emergency Physician in Boston, MA. He and Fred became close friends while they were both in medical school when Fred spent several months in the US studying medicine. They subsequently founded The Child is Innocent together with Omar McDoom in 2004 and Kevin has served as US Executive Director since. Kevin has spent months in Uganda working medically and visiting the children in this program and has had the opportunity to witness firsthand the remarkable transformation donations through this program have brought about for the wonderful kids sponsored in Uganda. His current research is focused on preparing US physicians for work in developing countries.
Dr. Omar McDoom
Omar is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer at the London School of Economics where he specializes in African politics and political violence. He first saw the situation in northern Uganda for himself during doctoral fieldwork in 2004 during one of the peaks of the conflict. He also met Dr. Fred Oola in Kampala at that time, and upon return to Boston, then met Dr. Kevin Schwartz. The three have been involved with TCII since its inception.
Greg Friedman
Greg Friedman has been the Treasurer and a Board Member of The Child Is Innocent since 2007. He is currently the CFO of Zayo Fiber Solutions, a business unit of Zayo Group, LLC, a nationwide telecommunications bandwidth provider based in Louisville, Colorado. Previously, Greg has had Product Management, Business Development and Marketing Management roles at Level 3 Communications, Deloitte & Touche, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and Zillow.com. He holds a Bachelors in Science in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife Kate, and son Levi.
Robert Ross
Robbie Ross is the Director of Admissions and Graduate Affairs at The School for Ethics and Global Leadership, a semester program for high school juniors located in Washington, DC that focuses on global affairs, international relations, and the critical exploration of ethical dilemmas in leadership. While a student at Harvard College, Robbie founded the Harvard College Coalition for Ugandan Peace. He spent the summers of 2007 and 2008 on the ground in Gulu, Uganda working with TCII while conducting field research for his senior thesis on post-conflict reconciliation and the processes of reintegration of child soldiers in northern Ugandan communities.
Nick Birger
Nick Birger is a junior officer in the U.S. Navy currently studying Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the summer of 2010, Nick worked with TCII in Gulu and Kampala by surveying current and prospective boarding schools for our students.