Breaking the cycle

Nancy Akoth

Nancy Akoth is an accomplished Project Management Professional with an in-depth understanding in developing and implementing sexual and gender-based programs. She is well-versed in spearheading new initiatives in support of functional operations and project completion. She is currently the Programs Manager at Ujamaa Africa where she coordinates the implementation of the Ujamaa's school-based program- Empowerment Transformation Training. The program seeks to provide a comprehensive rape prevention strategies for both girls and boys and implemented in Kenya, Malawi, Somalia, and South Sudan. Over the past 7 years, she has lead the development and implementation of strategies to improve empowerment self-defense program while also designing and modifying  program to march  the contextual realities within Ujamaa’ areas of operations more specifically Kakuma, Daadab, Malawi and Somalia. Her expertise ranges from conceptualization, design, administration, and monitoring of programs, leadership, quality management and fundraising. She is a certified member of Project Management Professional (PMP) and is currently undertaking Bachelor of Arts degree in Project Management at the University of Nairobi. She has previously been part of the Yes, I Do Alliance Project Implementation and Technical Team, and taken part in the Gender Transformative Approach Trainers of Trainees training conducted by Rutgers Netherlands in Nairobi. She is also a certified Master trainer (Trainers of Trainees).

Samora Asere

Samora Asere is a Child Protection and Alternative Care Practitioner. He has personal experience having been brought up in institutional care for over 10 years.
Presently, he sits at the board of Kenya Society of Care Leavers (www.kesca.org) as a chair, which is a registered network of young people 18+ who spent part or all of their childhood in residential care and rehabilitation centers; the network foregrounds the issues of people with lived care experience to help them have better life outcomes.

Georgina Harris-Hill

Georgina Harris – Hill is the founder of Pamoja Leo children’s charity working to transform care for children in Tanzania. She has her BSc in International Development from LSE and submitting her thesis currently on her MA in Development education and global learning with a special interest and focus in children’s rights in practice. She has an interest in early childhood development, family based care for children, the impacts of orphanage tourism and is passionate about the healing power of play! She is the mother of two fabulous children who remain the greatest teachers, avid traveler and lover of cross cultural living and learning.

Hilary Kennedy

Hilary Kennedy is a leading developer of Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) in the UK, an educational psychologist and an Honorary Research associate at University College London. She is currently a freelance VIG trainer working focusing at present onnew perinatal and domestic abuse projects. She is developing the joint CEO of AVIGuk focusing on research, training and development. She has been fortunate to be involved in international VIG developments in Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Tanzania, Ecuador and Mexico.

She has co-edited two books on VIG with Miriam Landor and Liz Todd. Video Interaction Guidance: A Relationship-Based Intervention to Promote Attunement, Empathy and Well being in 2011 and Video Enhanced Reflective Practice (VERP: Professional Development through attuned interaction) in 2015. She writes many articles and has contributed chapters to 3 recent books on Innovative Research in Infant Wellbeing, Family Justice and Neglect.

Dr Asheri Barankena

Dr. Barankena has ten years (nearly five years with Pact) of experience in clinical, research, and community-based HIV programming. He is currently the Deputy Chief of Party for a USAID Kizazi Kipya project, with his career path, progressively advancing to this position from HIV Integration Advisor and then Senior Technical Advisor. He is well-experienced in evidence-based public health approaches towards achieving HIV epidemic control.  He has worked closely to achieve these goals with the National AIDS Control Program and other key stakeholders in Tanzania, including PEPFAR implementing partners and Civil Society Organizations.

Fidelis Muthoni

Fidelis Muthoni is the Changing the Way We Care parenting and social behavior change manager. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Project Planning and Management. Her work involves promoting engagement in positive parent/child relationship during reintegration, family strengthening for sustainable reintegration and increasing retention in families. For the last thirteen years, Fidelis held various positions at CRS working on projects that focused on HIV, orphans and vulnerable children, parenting and early childhood development. She loves working with communities and families in ensuring that children thrive and maximize their human potential.

Gabriella Pinto

Gabriella Pinto currently serves as a Technical Advisor on Violence Against Women Prevention with Raising Voices, based in Kampala. She has previously held technical advisory roles with Plan International UK and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, with a focus on girls’ empowerment programs, as well as violence prevention programs that engage children and young people. She holds a master’s degree in Education, Gender and International Development from the UCL Institute of Education and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

Bekka Ross Russel

Bekka is the executive director of The Small Things, an NGO created to empower orphaned and vulnerable children and their families using the continuum of care model, which prioritizes keeping families together, with foster placement or adoption as a second choice, and high quality, attachment-focused residential care available as a last resort, when it is in the best interest of the child. TST also provides a daycare and preschool, weekend tutoring, business development, microfinance savings and loan groups, and vocational programs which are open to the wider community. The Small Things is built around the holistic vision of Martha Ayo, a local expert with over 30 years of experience caring for OVC in the community, and we are proud to have 100% Tanzanian management for all programs, engaging foreigners in support, administrative, capacity building and donor-facing roles exclusively. Through the Families and Futures Coalition, we are working to to unite and empower the fractured ecosystem of OVC care organizations across Tanzania, through access to practical program toolkits, training on best practices, shared specialist services, and a robust referral network. Bekka received an MPA in International Development at the London School of Economics, and is passionate about combining her academic grounding with best practices and local knowledge to provide as many opportunities as possible for the incredible children and families that TST works with. For more information on TST’s work, please check out www.thesmallthings.org or the Families and Futures Coalition website at www.familiesandfutures.org

Karen Walker-Simpson

Karen Walker-Simpson is the Director of the Funder Safeguarding Collaborative, which promotes greater collaboration and learning among funding agencies to strengthen safeguarding practices.  Karen spent the last eight years as a Safeguarding Specialist for international NGOs working across Africa, Asia, and Latin America before moving to Comic Relief as the organization’s Head of Safeguarding. Karen has just completed doctoral research examining the effectiveness of international safeguarding standards and donor requirements when applied by NGOs in Tanzania.

Jane Thompson

Jane has over 20 years’ experience in management and research roles within UK and international charities.  She has designed and carried out a range of mixed methods research, including peer research with homeless young people.  Most of her work has been with children and young people and she has an interest in participatory methods that engage and empower service users.  For the last eight years she has managed the research and evaluation programme at Railway Children, strengthening the evidence base for interventions with children at risk on the streets and creating a culture of evaluation and learning that drives service improvement.

Mary Gatama

Mary works for Railway Children Africa (RCA) as the Technical Lead for Children Living and Working in the streets. RCA works to support Children Living and Working in the streets (CLWS) across East Africa by responding to their immediate needs; challenging communities’ perceptions on street connected children; and advocating to Governments to ensure issues of street connected children remain as part of their political agenda.

Mary has working experience with vulnerable populations across East Africa. She has been involved in building practice of civil society organizations (CSOs) to understand and respond to the psychological and emotional needs of children living and working in the streets (CLWS) and their families. She has been instrumental in supporting local NGOs to contextualize and apply the educational therapeutic approach adopted from Juconi, a strategic partner for RCA in providing technical support in developing RCA family work programme. Mary is passionate about sharing and learning from others, especially practices that seek to support families in raising children in a protective environment that provide safety.  

Mbelwa Gabagambi

Mbelwa Gabagambi is a Child Protection Specialist currently working with UNICEF Tanzania. He has extensive experience in providing technical support to government and civil society organizations in establishing and rolling out a child protection system. At UNICEF Tanzania, he leads a portfolio on strengthening case management and alternative care processes within the child protection system.

Mr Gabagambi has an MSc in Community Economic Development (Southern New Hampshire University - USA) and Postgraduate Diploma in Child Protection in Emergencies (University of KwaZulu Natal-South Africa). He earned the National Vocation Qualification on Health and Social Care (NVQ 2 and NVQ3) in the United Kingdom, where he also practiced as a Support Assistant in alternative care institutions which supported children and youths with mental health challenges.

Mr. Gabagambi has worked with various organizations in different capacities, including with Pact Tanzania (Child Protection Specialist), Netherlands Development Organization (Advisor for Local Government strengthening), Concern Worldwide (Programme Officer - Civil Society Strengthening) and Education and Career Development Support (Managing Director).

Andy McCullough

Andy McCullough has worked in the childcare world for over 33 years. In this time, he has managed national projects and policy on sexual exploitation and child protection for a number of National charities. Andy has expertise in safeguarding and child protection with a particular focus on missing or runaway children. During the last 15 years at Railway Children, he has managed pioneering work with the transport industry and British transport police and is currently the Director for safeguarding for the organisation.

Rose Kagoro

Rose Kagoro works for Railway Children Africa (RCA) as Advocacy Manager. She also leads the Care Reform work within RCA that supports orphanages in reintegrating children to family based care, transitioning their operating models, and establishing a network of CSOs working on care reform to share their experiences and learning.

Rose has experience in setting up and nurturing networks, building and maintaining relations with government ministries, institutions and NGOs.

Dionis Shimbi

A value-driven public health professional with over 8 years of experience in implementing health and Child Protection programmes (HIV programs, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Psychosocial Support, Community Based HIV Services and OVC programs) targeting marginalized and hard to reach communities. 

He has proven proficiency in program design and implementation, organizational capacity development and partnership management.  

Dionis holds a master’s degree in public health and bachelor’s degree of Project Planning and Management. He currently works for Railway Children Africa as a Program Development and Partnership Management Lead, based in Dar es Salaam.

Irene Kimaro

Irene Kimaro works for Railway Children Africa as a Project Officer- Family Work, having 8 years of experience of working with children living and working on the streets (CLWS)and families.

She is an accredited Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) Practitioner and TOT in ACT Raising Safe Kids Programs. Her role is to ensure street connected children are reintegrated into safe families and to support caregivers heal from their childhood trauma so that they can raise and nurture their children.

Irene is always eager to learn more about models and interventions of working with vulnerable children and families to incorporate into her practitioner’s toolkit.

Shermin Moledina

Shermin Moledina works with Railway Children Africa as Programs Training and Practice Development Advisor. She has over two decades of experience working in homelessness, child protection, child rights, mental health and trauma- focused interventions with children, youth and families. Shermin has worked with the Caucus for Children’s Rights in Tanzania, and Mkombozi centre for Street Children where she developed programs and services for street-connected children and their families and spearheaded initiatives to advocate for their rights.

She also works as a consultant with NGOs, CBOs and local government authorities to develop and implement systems and procedures to safeguard and protect children and vulnerable adults in their programs.

Shermin is passionate about social justice and challenging cultural norms that deny woman and children from living as equal citizens. She strives to challenge herself in her personal and work life and enjoys supporting others to reach their full potential. Shermin holds a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Chicago.