TWAMANGULUKA
Through the business I founded, Twamanguluka Consultancy CC, I built leadership and management capacity and provide advocacy, lobbying, fundraising, and civil engagement training for youth to support their own organizations. As its business profile states, “Twamanguluka is proud to be a pioneer in servicing Namibia and Africa’s youth population at large.
This is done through innovative lobbying for youth interests by pushing for progressive policies in all areas that affect the well-being of youth. We also specialize in holistic programming, holistic training and community engineered responses to challenges.” Among many other things, I mobilized funds for International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) alumni through the U.S. Department of State to provide capacity-building training for National Youth Council (NYC) Regional Coordinators and facilitated their development of curricula based on identified needs and wants.
PAY
The Physically Active Youth (PAY) programme is a community-based project that focuses on the healthy development of young people in low-income communities. PAY programme provides a safe and constructive platform for a supervised after-school environment for youth. Using a holistic approach, the program addresses the physical health, academic status and personal development. This is implemented in the form of an after school programme in the Windhoek township of Katutura where children and youth come every day after school to receive academic assistance and engage in structured sports activities. In addition, one day in a week is dedicated to life skills training on topics of relevance for the local community as well as the Namibian society as a whole.
As the co-founder and Executive Director of the Physically Active Youth Programme (PAY) in Namibia, I undertook the risky endeavor (at the age of 21) to develop, and then actively led for thirteen years, an organization that since 2003 has provided holistic education in a sustainable way to approximately two thousand five hundred underserved students living in communities and attending schools that are still grappling with the negative legacy of the South African apartheid regime. PAY’s holistic approach addresses nine Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1-6, 8, 10, 13) and, under my leadership, the program increased students’ grade 12 pass rate to 76% as compared to a community average of 36%, with many continuing on to tertiary education and promising careers. My creating and implementing PAY’s innovative program model gave a large portion of these students (many of whom I personally mentored and coached) the chance to attend tertiary education and other career paths resulting in upward social mobility for themselves and, often, their families.
PAY’s success in mitigating the challenges of poverty and an insufficient education system has been internationally recognized, and I was approached in 2015 to present a TEDTalk about my work. In early 2020 CNN International profiled me and my work on their African Voices ChangeMaker show (“Women with powerful programs for African kids,” https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/03/17/african-voices-changemakers-school-programs.cnn (link temporarily not working)). PAY also received acknowledgments by former First Lady Michelle Obama on her social media platform in 2021 and 2022, and former President Barack Obama sat down on a panel his foundation had organized with the program director in 2023.
PAY’s twenty-two year (and continuing) track record of success is a testament to my ability to design and execute strategies that deliver measurable impact, as well as to build high-performing teams and develop and oversee an organization’s budget and finances. I note this success would not have come about without my ability to build strong strategic partnerships and formal and informal networks, forging relationships and garnering support across sectors, including with high-level government officials, international organizations, private sector, parastatals, and local communities.
