Josephine Irene Uwamariya is now the new Country Director for Actionaid Rwanda, replacing Theresa Karugwiza after more than three-years at the helm of the international poverty advocacy organization.
Uwamariya who officially begun her duties with Actionaid on March 22, after a one week induction at the African regional office in Nairobi-Kenya, was introduced to Rwandan staff on March 29th.
Introducing the new Country director, Theresa Karugwiza the former director welcomed the ever jolly Uwamaliya to Actionaid Rwanda, calling on staff to accord her maximum support for the good of the organization and the country.
“This is an important milestone in the history of this organization and am happy that am handing over to a fellow woman and a national,” Karugwiza said, and added: “Giver her necessary support required to do her duties and spear head the fight against poverty and any form of injustice in particular committed against women and children.”
Uwamaliya who has a rich 8-year experience in development work expressed happiness to join Actionaid, vowing to advance the organization’s ideals of fighting poverty in the country.
She said: “I’m very happy to join Actionaid and looking forward to working together to fight poverty and promote our country.”
ActionAid Rwanda is a country programme of ActionAid International (AAI) – an anti-poverty agency working with poor and voiceless people and communities and with like-minded partners worldwide.
Actionaid Rwanda has since the early 80s been in partnership with Aide et Action and in 1996 started as a cross boarder initiative managed by Actionaid Uganda dealing mainly repatriation of refugees, before becoming a full country programme in 1997.
Who is Uwamaliya?
Josephine Irene Uwamariya is a Graduate in Social Work and Social Administration from Makerere University, Kampala with an Honors Degree.
She has also graduated with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration of Maastricht School of Management (MSM) specializing in Project Management. She was born in Rwanda and brought up in Uganda where she lived for over 36 years until she returned in 1996.
Josephine’s main strengths revolve around her being people as well as result oriented. She has held numerous senior management positions in development agencies in Africa (Rwanda and Uganda) responsible for effective delivery of results against committed donor resources.
Josephine has contributed to the growth of Health Unlimited programmes supporting the poor and most vulnerable women and youth in Rwanda since 2001 in different management capacities including Project and Programme Manager as well as Deputy Country Manager.
She has experience in managing profit making Business Operations during her six year service in the National Insurance Corporation of Rwanda (SONARWA) as the Director of Administration from 1996 to 2001.
From 1991 to 1996, Josephine managed and supported the growth of TASO (U) Ltd HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes from only one administrative district to a geographical coverage of entire Southern Region of Uganda covering six Districts and from a clientele of few hundreds to over twenty five thousand in five years.
.
Through several professional trainings, Josephine has acquired management skills and competences in Leadership, Management of Financial, Human and other resources as well as Resource mobilization and Organizational Development.
Josephine has written and presented papers on health and poverty related topics at different International conferences including: International AIDS conferences, 4th Education and Entertainment Conference, International conference on Creative Economy and First World Conference on Communication for Development (WCCD).
She is an advocate for women and child rights. She is a graduate of Global Leaders Institute of the World Forum Foundation for Early Care and Education and a member of the International AIDS Society.