DIRECTOR PROFILE – Shamwari Yemwanasikana

DIRECTOR PROFILE

Ekenia T. Chifamba

Our Founder and Director

Ekenia T. Chifamba is a girls’ rights activist, motivational speaker and mentor to several young upcoming leaders. She currently sits on the executive board of KFM Zimbabwe, Perfection Media, and Tugwi Trust. She is a trustee for SAAPA Zimbabwe, and is an advisory board member for Bindura University for Combating Human Trafficking in Zimbabwe. She is a member of Executive Women`s Association, and is secretary for NANGO Northern Region where she leads the child rights sector in the same region.She is former Anti-Domestic Violence Council Member, Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Reference Group member and former CIVICUS Alliance Membership Advisory Group Member.

On a global scale,

Ekenia sits on the executive board of CIVICUS Global Alliance, and is a member of the Gender-Based Violence Network, the Global Network of Women’s Shelters, Working Group for Girls, and the Coalition for Adolescent Girls. She is a Fredrica Nauman fellow, and a International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) fellow (USA). She is currently a Gratitude Network Fellow.

Ekenia has been the focal point the World’s Children’s Prize, the world’s largest annual educative initiative for equality, children’s rights and democracy. Through this program, they have managed to train over 350 000 child rights ambassadors, over 20 000 Teachers, 10 000 parents and caregivers, 2000 traditional and religious leaders, and established over 700 child rights clubs in schools in 16 districts throughout Zimbabwe.

Chifamba has been invited as a speaker on both local and international platforms. In 2015, she was a guest speaker at the 2nd Women’s Conference on Shelters in the USA. She was also a speaker at the 3rd World Conference of Women’s Shelters at The Hague in the Netherlands on “Community Based Approach to Sexual Violence” in 2017. In the same year, she was honored at World’s Children’s Prize Award Ceremony in Sweden for her outstanding work in fighting for children’s rights. In July 2022, she was invited as a keynote speaker at the Gender-Based Violence Research Symposium by UN Women at the University of Zimbabwe.

Chifamba has been recognized among the 50 most inspirational women in Zimbabwe and was named one of the 40 Great Zimbabweans featured in the Mail & Guardian. She is also one of the 50 outstanding inspirational women by the Institute of Corporate Directors in Zimbabwe. She was awarded the Outstanding Women’s Rights Defender by ZC News Community Awards and is one of the iconic women featured in the Go Getter’s Founding 100 book.

Chifamba holds the following awards from Proweb Women’s Achievers Awards in the following categories: Role Model, Outstanding Woman, and Community Champion. This high-flying director was named second out of 10 Health Champions in Zimbabwe for championing SRHR with girls by Health Times. She also received recognition for Social Entrepreneurship Award from the National Chamber Commerce-Women’s Desk.

Chifamba was recognized by PAW Foundation in 2017 as one of the 10 Phenomenal African Women touching lives in communities. Chifamba also holds an award from the Zimbabwe Teen Awards for Teen Development. She has been named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in Zimbabwe for contributing to children, world peace, and human rights. She was recently awarded the Compassion award at the Harare Metropolitan Awards 2022.