Meet the team

Christine is a young woman who is passionate about helping young women and girls. She is a strong advocate for mental health and wellness. She is motivated to inspire fellow youth toward realizing and tapping into their potential as well as educating them on their rights and available opportunities.

She has built her capacity in advocating for youth and adolescents empowerment, enhancing their capacity for sustainable development. Through this, Christine has had a chance to empower young women and girls on good health practices focusing on mental health, Menstrual Hygiene and Reproductive health and rights. She has also supported business development through providing business skills to growing enterprises and leadership. This she has done through one on one and school visits to motivate them toward academic excellence. All this has been achieved under different organisations including; UK’s International Citizen Service Project and United Missions International.

Christine joined Hope in action in 2017 as a volunteer health educator and board member. She represented Hope in Action Network at the young feminists convening in 2018 curated by Womankind Worldwide. Through the networks created at this convening, she was able to apply and get selected as a volunteer mentor for Akili Dada in 2019.
Christine holds a of Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from The Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) and a certificate in introduction to epidemiology for global health from the University of Washington.

Nyamwange Edith Kemunto has over 4 years of experience in the Community Development Sector. She has worked with women and girls, developing programs based on the themes of health, education, social and economic empowerment, advocacy and young women leadership. Currently she works on a project that is building the capacity of young leaders interested in policy, and her interest is in seeing more young women conquering this space, and that they can feel safe and confident as they go about it.

She is also a postgraduate student at the University of Nairobi pursuing a Master of Arts in Environmental Planning and Management. Driven by a commitment to influence change, she recently traveled to the University of the Fraser Valley to advance her research on the Contribution of women to Kenya’s agricultural sector and Household Food Security under a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship. Upon the completion of her Masters’ program, Edith plans to work on projects that will ensure that women and girls live sustainably. Ultimately, her purpose for living is to give hope to another girl that it is possible to live their best lives yet.

John Paul Obat is the Founder and Chair of Chanuka Association . He has a wealth experience in the community development space. He is committed to social empowerment, health and reproductive rights of men and women. He has championed conferences and platforms for young people in Eastlands. He is also the founder of Fellowship of Eastlands churches that envisions the church working together and coming to serve the Lord. He has also served as a youth leader in East Assembly Buruburu where has served in the worship team, outreach department.

He holds a diploma in community development and social work and is currently pursuing a diploma in Theology at KAG East University. His passion is to see communities being empowered and equipped for a better society.

Juliet Awuor is a communication professional with a background in
public relations & journalism. she is passionate about youth empowerment
and creating reproductive health awareness and has written and spoken on
youth reproductive health education, at local and international forums.

Juliet is the founder of Mwanadada, a platform that provides
comprehensive sex and reproductive health education and mentorship to
teenagers and was named a PAI champion of comprehensive sex
education.

My name is Maria Onyango I hold diploma in community development and social work. Am currently attached to Network for Adolescents and Youth of Africa (Naya Kenya) as a media and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) youth advocate am passionate about making change in my community when it comes to issues affecting girl child well-being.

Nelly Lukale who is the founder of Hope in Action Health and Hygiene Network has championed the rights of women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa for over 10 years. Her advocacy has taken her to Europe, Asia, North America and across Africa. As a volunteer and currenly the Chairperson at the YWCA Kenya (Nairobi branch), Ms. Lukale served as a key expert that led a multi talented team of young women researchers who worked on the review of SRHR indicators in 8 African countries generating a global south SRHR report: southern voices: Reclaiming and redefining the Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Agenda for 2015. During that time she also helped publish two fact sheets Reclaiming and redefining rights: setting the adolescent and young people’s SRHR agenda beyond International conference on Population and Development (icpd+20) and sexual reproductive health and rights for adolescents in Africa.

As a community Health Nurse, she has played a key role in mobilizing and coordinating regional and global summits for young women and was part of the team that developed an empowering training module on leadership and capacity building for young women in Africa as champions for SRHR and HIV. She once spearheaded an adolescent girl’s project at the YWCA Kenya which aimed at empowering adolescent girls in SRH issues, leadership and entrepreneurship through training.

Safari Sarah Meena is her name. Born on October 23 1993 in Nairobi. A firstborn and a daughter in a family of six. Attended Racecourse primary school followed by the trinity school then proceeded to The Alliance girls high school. On completion of high school education she joined The Nairobi university where she pursued her Bachelor’s Degree in Arts. Graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and Germanistics. Safari believes that we all have a purpose in life. We all have a calling, things that make our hearts and mind tick and inspire change in us, change in our community and the world and Issues that provoke some kind of reaction in us. Safari is a strong advocate of the girl child and women in the society that it’s OK to be female and still be an engineer. It’s OK to be you YOU is all you have to be. That your gender, race, nationality ,religion, beliefs, culture you name it does not make you less a human being. Just embrace it.

Safari being a global citizen is also fascinated with cultures and their uniqueness and the perspectives each culture holds . It is this attitude that gave her a volunteering opportunity with Zentrum für Mission und Ökumene8ZMÖ in Germany from February 2016 to February 2017.

Her motivation is the word and counsel of God Isaiah 61:1-2 – “I THE SPIRIT of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [the year of His favor] and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn”

Shadrack Abala is a practicing accountant at Tela Alusala & Company, Alongside being an accountant he has worked with Students for Liberty, ICY Africa, among other renowned organizations with 5 years experience being passionate about advancing gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights programming and youth advocacy in the context of sustainable development through movement building, Education, digital and social media, policy advocacy and capacity building for young people and adolescents girls.

Shadrack has proven experience in building alliances and partnerships with national  and international counterparts, UN Country Teams, and implementing partners in designing and implementing interventions that ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including maternal health, family planning, gender, and adolescent and youth empowerment to under-served populations.

Tom Isaac Makisa Makokha is the current  National Coordinator of WCY KENYA (Welfare of Children and Youth Kenya) an advocacy organization championing for  child protection and participation in development, promoting youth participation and decision making in national development.  He is also the program administrator of Inspiration Kenya a youth serving organization working in partnership with Kenya school of government in modelling Kenyan universities students Leadership

Development in transforming the Youths of Kenya, and also the Founder/Director of Timak Solutions a consultant enterprise firm in Kenya that offers training in social

protection, enterprise development with vast knowledge in livelihoods program, health and economic empowerment,  a life member, Volunteer, first-aider, first Responder and also trained as a psycho social support (PSS) counselor with Kenya Red Cross. Has knowledge and experience of over 10 years in community mobilization, social work, Fundraising and Resource Mobilization, civic education and with different leadership tasks.

On day to day basis involved in trainings, facilitations in Business Management, Enterprise risk management, Project plan management, and Research, Concepts and Business plans development and possess ICT Skills

He is a mature respectable patriotic young Kenyan with exceptional understanding and knowledge on national values, a team player who possess good partnership and networking skills, with passion and skills to empower, train, connect and link, good communication skills, with experience of interacting with people of all status, gender, age and class.