Our Staff

Agnes is a 42 years old woman with a 12 years old daughter. She was the first staff member working at the women’s center. She started in July 2007 and was supervising the renovations of the house before the center could open to the public. Since November 2007 she has been working as our administrator and lives in a nearby house to be able to help the clients when needed.

She has really struggled to provide herself and her daughter a good life. It began in 2002 when she was living in Dar es Salaam with her husband and daughter, working at a law firm. She had a stomach problem which led her to seek medical care, and it was found that she was HIV positive. Her employment was on contract basis for one year and due to her status the company decided not to re-new her contract. She was hospitalized and when she returned her husband packed his belongings and left her and her daughter in a rented apartment without any money. She had to sell parts of her household belongings to meet the rent.

In 2003 Agnes was very weak and her youngest sister came to her aid. The sister is a nurse, took Agnes and her daughter to her house for almost three years. During this time Agnes were mainly in bed unable to work or even walk far distances. The sister took her to a hospital and introduced her to ARV’s which she’s been taking from the end of 2003 up to date. In 2006 she recovered and decided to return to her home town and seek for employment. The founder of the Pamoja Tunaweza Women’s Center has given her a fresh start and a way to live positively with HIV.

Dr. Karen Yeates

Karen is one of the co-founders of Prevention Through Empowerment ( CACHA’s women’s health project) and has participated in the founding and development of the center in partnership with Mama Minde, the managing director at KWIECO since the inception. Karen lived in Tanzania with her family in 2007 and organized the official ‘opening’ of the center. Karen travels regularly to Tanzania from her home in Canada to help the center staff to expand and develop their initiatives. Karen is a physician who works at Queen’s University, in Ontario Canada. She has always had an interest in women’s health and gender inequality. She is currently focusing on developing the women’s health program at the center. She has started a volunteer program for foreign volunteers (doctors/nurses/counselors/medical students) to spend time at the center and help in center programs related to their skill set. She considers Tanzania her second home and the Pamoja Tunaweza Family are her new family.

Peninah

Peninah is a Kenyan who trained as a clinical officer in Tanzania and has worked as a clinical officer for 2 years at a rural hospital in the Kilimanjaro region. Peninah has participated in several ‘health caravans’ run by CACHA in the region over the last 2 years and has a good working knowledge of women’s health. She provides health care to our clients and participates in numerous other activities to support clients through the center. She will be responsible for keeping our pharmacy stocked and for providing health teaching to clients within the clinic and in an outreach setting within neighboring villages and communities where we hope to expand some of our work.

Babu

Babu is an older man, with many skills who should be retired but continues to work because he enjoys it! He works as our gardener and maintenance man. He considers many of the clients his grand-children and has even taken one of our pregnant clients who was living in the shelter to the hospital when she went into labor and we weren’t around!

Sekunda

Sekunda is 40 years old and is working for Pamoja Tunaweza as a part time HIV counselor. She has three children, she is HIV positive and one of her children is positive as well. She has been working as a volunteer at Mawenzi hospital (a government hospital in the region); here she was conducting counseling for HIV/AIDS patients at CTC (HIV clinic). She is a great help at the women’s center, with her knowledge and her way of talking to our women.

Mwanahamisi

Mwanahamisi is a 35 year old woman who works as our cleaner and cook. She has four young children of her own and this is one of her first jobs outside the home. She has also received a loan through our program and is now making ‘Mandazi’ (Tanzanian doughnuts) which she sells in town. She cooks for the women who live in the shelter upstairs at the center.