
We are stronger together.
We are teachers, students, leaders, doers, problem-solvers, achievers, and we make up the majority of the healthcare workforce.
International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. Our AMPATH family is full of so many wonderful women who are leaders in their universities, hospitals, work places, communities and homes. Here we share just some of their stories and say Asante Sana (thank you!) for everything they do to move our partnership and our world forward.
Celebrating the Women of AMPATH
Even as I lead the project, I must confess that it has been a learning experience for me, and an opportunity to continue honing my own leadership skills.
Beyond the skills and knowledge, WIL has given me something even more powerful—a community of allies.
This journey has taught me that leadership is not a solo act—it is a collective movement.
The WomenLift Health Leadership Journey was not just a program—it was a call to step into my power, to lead with authenticity, and to uplift others as I rise.
Through our interactions, I came to appreciate that knowledge is vast and multidimensional, and no one has a monopoly on wisdom.
AMPATH’s Women in Leadership Program is determined to bridge the leadership gap for women in healthcare.
Evelyn (Eve)) Too is a clinician and administrator of the AMPATH HIV Clinic at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH). She recently spent two weeks at Indiana University focused on learning more about the care of people living with HIV as they age and shared thoughts
Over two decades, Tecla Chepkoech Kirwa’s involvement and support for AMPATH have grown to include many roles.
Elizabeth Kabuthi is a medical social worker and Certified Child Life Specialist working in Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Shoe for Africa Children’s Hospital, as the program coordinator of the vibrant Sally Test Child Life Program in partnership with AMPATH.
In the heart of Kondele slums in Kisumu County, Michel Maria Omondi’s story speaks volumes about resilience, empowerment, and the transformative potential of inclusion.
Sarah Ellen Mamlin is a beloved member of the AMPATH family. For more than three decades, she has helped AMPATH people and programs grow.
Ever since she was a little girl, Dr. Brenda Chepkoech seemed destined to come to Indiana for medical training. This summer she completed rotations in nephrology, pulmonology and in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and now hopes to be part of the team that is slated to set up a PICU in Eldoret in the near future.
Alexandra (A.J.) Mata, MD, just arrived in Eldoret to serve as the reproductive health team leader. Her role as AMPATH’s team leader is the final component of a two-year Global Women's Health and Equity Fellowship with the University of Toronto.
Dinah Chelagat, PhD, dean of the Moi University School of Nursing and Midwifery, reflects on the impact of nurses, the challenges they face and the AMPATH partnership.
In the heart of Kisumu, Kenya, lives a young woman named Yvonne Ogolla who has always had a passion for helping her community. Yvonne grew up in an informal settlement in Kisumu City where poverty, lack of education and teenage pregnancy are prevalent.
Dr. Edith Apondi is the Deputy Chief of Party for USAID Dumisha Afya. She began working with people living with HIV after completing her internship in 2003 and previously served as a technical advisor for pediatric and adolescent care programs for USAID AMPATHPlus. She is a consultant pediatrician working with MTRH.
Although Kenyan surgical registrar (resident) Dr. Beryl Munda often found herself completely lost in the Indianapolis campus hospitals, her AMPATH educational exchange experience convinced her she was in exactly the right place professionally.
A former beneficiary of the PEPFAR/USAID-funded Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) program for adolescent girls and young women joins the public service as an assistant chief.
The AMPATH Qualitative Research Core (AQRC) offers investigators a resource for qualitative and mixed method research. Violet Naanyu, PhD, is the founder and director of the AQRC which started in 2018 as a resource for investigators.
As Jepchirchir (Chiri) Kiplagat comes to the official end of her Fogarty Fellowship, she looks back on a year of tremendous professional growth highlighted by being first author on a publication in The Lancet HIV about improving care for people aging with HIV.
Dr. Jaguga received a prestigious Fogarty Global Health Fellowship through the Northern/Pacific Global Health (NPGH) Research Training Consortium. Her year-long research project trains peer counselors to deliver a brief substance use intervention for youth living with HIV and then assesses how feasible and acceptable the intervention is.
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, Dr. Edith Kwobah, head of the department of mental health at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), shared her inspiration and passion for expanding mental health services throughout western Kenya.
Margaret Chepkirui is a peer educator at AMPATH Plus. She helps people living with HIV by using her own experience. Peers are very important people because they empower, through peer education, disclosure and health talks at the pharmacy and modules. They act as a support system, provide group therapy, psychosocial support groups, one-on-one counselling, and most importantly, they are good role models.


Chamas for Change Truly Changes Young Life
AMPATH’s Chamas for Change bring together pregnant and parenting women for peer support, health education and economic empowerment.
Currently, there are over 450 groups with approximately 5,000 women participating across five counties. More than 16,000 members have graduated from the program in the last 7 years.
The results from an AMPATH study published in 2020 revealed that:
84.4% of women in chamas deliver their baby in a health facility, compared to 50.4% in a control group
75.8% of women in chamas had a health visit within 48 hours of birth, compared to 38.3% in a control group
64% of women in chamas had 4+ prenatal visits, compared to 37.4% in a control group
82% of women in chamas breastfed exclusively for six months, compared to 47% in a control group
Hear from two young woman whose lives were truly changed by their Chamas involvement and the support of community health volunteers (CHVs):
AMPATH Programs Improve the Lives of Women in Kenya
Bungoma County has partnered with AMPATH to launch the SCINOP Project: Scientific Citizenry and Knowledge-to-Policy Adaptation in Maternal and Child Health.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) campaign shines an international spotlight on the need to join together to end violence against women and girls.
Celebrating HIV-exposed infants (HEI) who reach two years without contracting the virus is a significant achievement in HIV care.
The County Government of Elgeyo Marakwet, Metkei Ward, in collaboration with AMPATH and Moi University, has received a generous equipment donation from the German Doctors Agency to equip the new Metkei Community Maternity Ward.
Fifty thousand women in Nepal and Kenya will be screened for breast and cervical cancer through a new 3-year AMPATH Global initiative.
Tremendous successes have been achieved through the Chamas for Change program activities over the past 12 years of implementation.
USAID AMPATH Uzima proudly joined Uasin Gishu County in the grand opening of the Mama Rachel Ruto Maternity Hospital.

Make your lifesaving gift now
Your Gift Improves the Lives of Women in Western Kenya
54% of AMPATH’s donors are women. Many of our most successful programs support women and women’s health issues such as breast and cervical cancer; maternal, newborn and child health; and economic empowerment.
You can save lives and build health systems through your gift to our AMPATH Consortium lead institution: Indiana University.
Your gift goes to AMPATH and is tax-deductible through IU Foundation (Tax ID: 35-6018940).
Women Donors Power Our Mission
The connections Debby Rempis has to Indiana University School of Medicine’s work in Kenya through AMPATH are long and deep. Her parents’ support of and belief in IU’s work in Kenya carried over to Debby, who has made annual financial gifts to AMPATH for years.
Through their dedication to the Mwangaza Scholarship program, Tal and Betsy Bosin have assisted to train more than 2,100 Kenyan physicians
When medical resident Shannon Kelley Oates, MD, FACE, learned about a new initiative Indiana University (IU) was starting in Kenya in 1990, she knew she had to go.
AMPATH is extremely grateful for the support of donors such as Tim and Tonia Hassinger. The Hassingers have been supporting AMPATH since 2015 and most recently provided matching funds for AMPATH’s year-end fundraising campaign. Tonia Hassinger shares her passion for AMPATH:
