Professional Experience:
As a woman of color, feminist, community enthusiast, art-connoisseur, inclusive practitioner and learner, I have been honored to serve: (1) Five years in clinical physiotherapy, community outreach, and lecturing University students in rehabilitation medicine; (2) Over 20 years designing, managing, implementing and budget tracking national, multi-country and regional SRHR, HIV, SEAH and GBV prevention, gender norms transformative, climate resilient, digitally inclusive and intersectional rights-defendership initiatives that are intersectional, in diverse African settings. This involved advocating, lobbying, capacity strengthening, social mobilisation, knowledge brokering, convening, good practice documentation, diplomacy and negotiation, social accountability monitoring, aligning empathic EQ and SQ techniques with development actions, cross-functional team forming, talent management, creative design, analytical problem-solving, research, non-profit board and governance development, content and material development for policy advocacy actions and community campaigns/social action, nurturing bilateral and multi-lateral partnership, participatory grant-making, strategic planning, transition and succession planning, shocks and change management, resilience building and organisational development in multi-cultural and multi-sectoral spheres; and (3) Over 12 years engaging and mobilising Government officials, Parliamentarians, community groups, in- and out-of-school adolescents, women in their diversity, men and adolescent boys, traditional and religious leaders, special groups: children, LGBTQIA+, sex workers, prisoners and ex-prisoners, PLHIV, PWUID, and service providers in health, education and social services, towards rights-based and gender-responsive policy, practice and norms shifts. IMulti-sectoral initiatives I’ve had the opportunity to implement or led, were supported by: Action Aid, African Development Bank, AJWS, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Aidsfonds, Austrian Development Agency, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CDC, DfID/FCDO, Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands, Embassy of Ireland, EU Commission, FHI360, Firelight Foundation, Ford Foundation, GIZ, Global Fund, HER Voice Fund, Hivos, ILO, IFRC, Medical Aid Films, MSI, Norad, OSISA, Oxfam Canada, Global Affairs Canada, Pact, Robert Carr Fund, Sweden/Sida, SDC (Swiss), Save the Children, SANAC, Stop TB Partnership, USAID, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNESCO, UN Women/UNTF, Urgent Action Fund (UAF) Africa, ViiV Healthcare, VSO, WaterAid and WHO funded programmes and consultancies.