Buya Mukonzo Winfred is a final year student at Maseno studying Public Health with Information Technology, She is the Founder and Director of Empower HER Initiative, an initiative that mentors women and girls to become agents of social and economic change.

She founded the initiative during her term of leadership as a student leader to challenge women and girls to do more.

She is the 3rd born in a family of 5, 4 girls and one boy. Growing up, her parents gave them equal opportunities to thrive regardless of their gender. At the moment the initiative has grown and expanded its operations in 2 counties, Vihiga and Kisumu where they actively mentor the girl child.

In campus, in partnership with other NGOs she also trains female students who’d like to contest for elective positions in leadership and nurture their leadership ambitions. This has led to a tremendous increase in female representation as candidates for elective positions. She also trains students on hands on skills such as mat weaving, braiding and nail art that gives them extra income to meet their needs. She also organizes forums over a cup of coffee in partnership with the school to talk about issues affecting women in campus and come up solutions.

She also has support programs for young mums who are campus students with kids through advocacy, economic empowerment and enabling them to strike a balance between school and responsibility.

She is also passionate about transformational leadership, as it’s only through this that we can have a better society