THE TEAM

Maka Chikowero

Founder & President

Maka is the founder and president of MTC Educate A Girl Inc, a high school student, an athlete, a member of the UNGeneration Equality Youth Task Force adolescent girls leaders, and the immediate past president of the Rozaria Memorial Trust girls clubs of North America. Maka has received several awards in Zimbabwe and the USA. Among other honors was being nominated for the prestigious international children’s peace prize award in 2020. Her organization, MTC Educate A Girl Inc is a non-profit organization for girls by a girl whose main objective is to empower girls and young women in rural and peri-urban areas to support girls’ education, fight the scourge of child marriages, challenge harmful gender stereotypes, groom women leaders and level gender inequalities. MTC Educate A Girl Inc fosters volunteerism, advocacy, and community activism. It is dedicated to supporting orphaned girls and those from low-income and rural areas of Zimbabwe to stay in school, play a sport, learn some entrepreneurial skills and fight period poverty. It provides educational scholarships, school uniforms, school supplies and sanitary products to ease the educational experience of its beneficiaries. It also provides sports equipment to enable hundreds of girls in rural Zimbabwe to play a sport, especially soccer, which remains largely male-dominated. Maka, through her organization, to date, has provided sports bras and soccer equipment to several girls’ soccer teams in communities and via schools. Her organization sponsors MTC Sirens, a community-based girls soccer club that uses women coaches, a hugely popular model that Maka’s organization now reproduces across more villages. MTC Sirens soccer club reaches hundreds of girls through weekly training sessions, regular soccer matches as well as all-girls soccer tournaments. The club also provides psycho-social support to marginalized girls, survivors of child marriages and invites career mentors, community health workers and law enforcement agents to speak on issues surrounding SRHR, abuse and GBV.

Board of Directors

Kelvin Tarukwasha

Co-founder

Kelvin has a broad background of leadership experience in business, non-profit and church settings. His undergraduate degree is in Accounting and he holds a graduate Seminary degree in Biblical Studies and a Masters in Business Administration. His passion in life is to add value to the lives and vocations of leaders in order to help them be successful and add value to the lives of those they serve. Kelvin’s personal mission is to model, mentor and multiply leadership in all his spheres of influence. Leading group coaching sessions and teaching leadership through workshops and conferences are at the heart of his passion. Kelvin is currently  working as the General Manager  at Sodexo Universities segment  at East Tennessee State University. He is excited to support Maka with her MTC Educate A Girl Inc that he helped her set up.

Joseph Chikowero

Board Chairperson

Joseph Chikowero is a graduate of the University of Zimbabwe (B.A. Hons. in English, M.A. in English)
and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD in African Literature).
Born in Mhondoro-Ngezi, Zimbabwe, Joseph has deep respect for the resilience of rural
communities. Often separated from his father who worked in the cotton factories of distant towns, Joseph was raised by his mother, several brothers, one sister and indeed, the village. Vivid memories from this period include villagers coming together for collective farming efforts cheering the local school soccer and netball teams as they battled neighboring school teams. Joseph played soccer and volleyball for his primary and secondary schools before leaving for the capital, Harare, for higher education. After graduating from the University of Zimbabwe, Joseph taught at a rural secondary school in Karoi district where he first mooted the idea of a girls soccer team. While a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he signed up as a volunteer coach
for his daughter’s soccer teams and also introduced her to swimming.
Professionally, Joseph remains a dedicated teacher and researcher. He was lecturer and
program director at the Zimbabwe Open University and graduate teaching assistant for some accomplished professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s African Cultural Studies department, Family and Consumer Studies department and African Studies program. Joseph has held several
post-doctoral fellowships in the Institute for Regional and International Studies
(IRIS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published book chapters and journal
articles in several international journals. An avid fan of human stories against adversity, Joseph finds inspiration in the struggles of vulnerable individuals and groups. In his spare time, Joseph writes short stories and plays social soccer. As chair of MTC Educate A Girl Inc, Joseph feels highly privileged to be helping steer an organization whose mission is to uplift one of the most vulnerable social groups; girls and young women in rural parts of Africa. He is also excited by the fact that MTC is an organic part of the Chimanimani community whose education and sports programs are driven by members of that
community. He welcomes the challenge and opportunity to pull together the competencies of each member of this exciting team of emerging and proven champions to accomplish the goals of
MTC Educate A Girl Inc. Hande nacho!
Let’s go!​

Virginia Lee Barry

Community Engagement

Virginia V. Lee is a passionate advocate of youth development, particularly programs
that foster academic achievement, the pursuit of higher education and promote civic engagement. She has nineteen years of experience developing and facilitating youth
programs for nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher learning including
Americorp, Madison School and Community Recreation, Reach Dane, The Met School,
University of Wisconsin-Madison and Edgewood College. As an alumnus of Yale
Universities Ulysses S. Grant Foundation youth program and the Ronald E. McNair
Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, Virginia understands first-hand the benefits
of participating in programs that support achievement and appreciates having the
opportunity to create similar spaces for youth.

Marta Brigham

Youth Engagement

Marta Mae Tabootay Brigham is a 17-year-old Junior attending Madison College’s Early STEM College Academy. ESCA is a dual-credit program provided to select Madison, WI juniors and seniors and allows students the chance to receive an Associates' degree while finishing high school. Marta is proudly a part of the Rozaria girls club. She also sits as a board member in charge of youth engagement for MTC Educate a Girl, a non-profit organization led by a teenager, to empower other girls in rural areas and support their education. MTC Educate a Girl is dedicated to supporting orphaned girls and those from low-income and rural areas of Zimbabwe to stay in school, play a sport, learn some entrepreneurial skills, and fight period poverty. It provides educational scholarships, school uniforms, school supplies, and sanitary products to ease the educational experience of its beneficiaries. Marta enjoys helping less-privileged girls so that they can also stay in school and participate in sports. Marta believes challenging oneself through education and participation in sport boosts self-confidence.

Tim Wszalek

​Business Partnerships

Tim Wszalek has been coaching youth soccer in the Madison area since 2014.  He currently serves as the Assistant Director of Operations for Regent Soccer Club and coaches with Madison 56ers Soccer Club. He holds a BS in Sports and Recreation Management from the University of Minnesota Crookston. During his time with Regent SC, Tim coached Maka for 2 years and got to know her, the Chikowero family, and their mission to empower young women around the world. Tim is excited and honored to bring his knowledge of the sports industry to support a worthy cause. He fills the role of Tournament Director for MTC's annual tournament. 

Adv. Knowledge Renzva

Legal Affairs

  Knowledge Renzva was born at Kadyamusuma village in Nyanga North district of Zimbabwe.
An only child, Knowledge lost his birth mother at the tender age of one and was nursed by a maternal grandmother. Knowledge barely knew his father before he also passed on. A bright student, young Knowledge passed his junior high school examinations but could not get money
to progress to senior secondary school as there was no sponsor in sight. He spent an entire year at home until an unknown well-wisher came through and undertook to fund Knowledge's level studies at Nyanga High School where he excelled. Knowledge chose to study Law at the University of Zimbabwe and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws Honors in 2000. He joined the
private practice for four years before joining the bench as a magistrate for two years.
Thereafter he joined the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority's litigation department where in 13
years, he has risen to be its Acting Head of Litigation. Essentially raised an orphan himself, Knowledge knows what it means to excel in school and yet have no one to turn to for financial support. Serving on the MTC Educate A Girl Inc board is
Knowledge's small way of thanking the maternal grandmothers who nursed him, the anonymous sponsor who funded his senior secondary school education and indeed all who rendered one form of help or other along that bumpy road.
Knowledge is a staunch Chelsea FC fan and enjoys spending time with his children when they are home from school.

Advisory Board

Luci Chikowero

Communications Officer

Luci Chikowero grew up in Harare and Gweru in Zimbabwe. After losing her mother at a young age, Luci was raised by her dad and an aunt.  She played netball for her high school in Gweru. After high school, Luci worked in the foodservice industry while pursuing higher education through the University of Zimbabwe Evening School. She enrolled for a degree program in Health and Gender Studies before joining her family in Madison, WI. Luci works for a health diagnostics services company in Madison. Away from her work, she directs the North American operations of the Rozaria Memorial Trust, a non-profit organization that fights child marriages in Murewa, Zimbabwe. Luci has been involved in policy-making at the UN Women and, since 2017, has been a core group member of the North American and European Caucus of the United Nations Commission on Status Women. The 7-member core group is tasked with the management and communication of the caucus business in between annual conferences. Luci also coordinates annual participation to the UN Youth Conference at the Status of Women and Girls(CSW) in New York City by a group of Madison-based schoolgirls. Luci is inspired by seeing young women and girls taking up leadership positions regardless of class or geographical location. She believes that given the right support, everyone has something valuable to offer which is why she is excited to work with MTC as a communications officer. Luci brings her extensive organizational experience, open-mindedness, progressive outlook, gender and inter-generational leadership across different fields to MTC Educate A Girl Inc. A self-described soccer and swim mum, Luci enjoys watching her daughter and son compete in soccer and swim events. In her spare time, Luci enjoys watching her favorite club Manchester City.

Dr. Dan Malone

Patron

Dr. Dan Malone cares for patients with Rheumatologic disorders, diagnosing and
treating arthritis and related autoimmune conditions. He has special expertise in
diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound and ultrasound-guided procedures, and he
is recognized as one of the leading Rheumatology ultrasonographer practitioners and teachers in the nation. He earned his MD from the University of Illinois
Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine in Chicago and did a fellowship in basic
scientific immunology research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda,
MD. He was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for 23 years
and then chose to join the private sector. He is the current president of the
Wisconsin Rheumatology Association, the state-wide scientific Rheumatology
Organization. Dr. Malone, being semi-retired, sees patients one day a week at
Prairie Ridge Health, Columbus, WI, and he volunteers seeing Rheumatology
patients at the BSP Specialty free clinic, Middleton, WI, one day per month. He
enjoys playing soccer, and occasionally he scores goals!​

Ramatoulie Barrry

​

Ramatoulie Kujabi Barry is a middle school student from Madison, Wisconsin. She is interested in the visual arts, sports, dance, music and creating a more just, equitable and humane world for all of its inhabitants.
She is compassionate, sensitive to the needs of others and is always willing to support members of the community that need allies in challenging times. She is learning about the power of organizing and how to work within a collective as a member of the Girls Scouts and the Rozaria Memorial Trust Girl Club of North America. As a Rozaria Memorial Trust member, she attended the Young Women and Girls Conference at UN Commission on Status of Women 2017
through 2019. This opportunity afforded Ramatoulie the chance to network
with international leaders and peers, engage in a multitude of experiences and ultimately learn community development strategies that she can draw from in her civic engagement work. Rama played soccer for years and now plays volleyball competitively for her middle school team. She has participated in Girls on the Run 5K spring
2015 through 2017 and now serves as a junior coach. She understands the
benefits of playing sports and that inspired her to advocate for greater access and opportunities for girls to play sports. In January 2019, Rama was awarded the Outstanding Young Person award by the Urban League of Greater Madison.

MTC Staff - Zimbabwe

Patience Magobeya

Community Engagement Officer

Patience Magobeya is a semi-retired self-driven woman who lives and leads MTC Educate A Girl Inc programs in Nhedziwa, Mutambara, in the Chimanimani district of Zimbabwe. Patience’s qualifications in the broad area of human services include a Zim A.H.E.A.D certificate, National HIV Prevention Behavior Change Program certificate and a Red Cross (First Aid, Mother and Child Care, Health, Hygiene and Accident Prevention) certificate. Patience is passionate about vulnerable girls in her community, many of whom are orphaned. In her spare time, Patience volunteers as “gogo” or grandmother to counsel girls in stressful situations. In her position as MTC Educate A Girl Inc lead field officer, Patience is glad to share experiences with like-minded individuals and organizations within and beyond her immediate community. As MTC lead field officer, Patience is the outstretched hand reaching out to offer counseling, mentorship and give psycho-social support to MTC scholars and soccer players. She also identifies and interviews candidates for MTC fellowships, procures school materials for MTC fellows, creates linkages between MTC, the community and local schools, and acts as guardian to the girls in their academic journey. After Cyclone Idai hit eastern Zimbabwe in early 2019, Patience mobilized resources for villagers who had lost their household goods, livestock and crops. Patience is excited to be challenging herself and also seeing real change in her community.

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Annah Makondesa

MTC Intern

​Annah Makondesa is MTC Educate A Girl Foundation’s intern based at Nhedziwa, Chimanimani. Annah is a focused, goal-oriented, high school student. Annah plays soccer through MTC Sirens, a soccer club formed by MTC to promote girls’ participation in sports. In her role as MTC intern, Annah works closely with the head soccer coach and supports girls to learn new soccer skills, gain confidence, encourages them to participate in any other sporting disciplines and  get out of their comfort zones to try new things.  Annah also works closely with the MTC community engagement officer to develop and implement programs that help with awareness around the issue of child marriage. Anna supports MTC scholars to ensure that they are provided with educational scholarships, school supplies and uniforms.
Annah was initially drawn to MTC by opportunities to socialize with other girls, volunteer in the community as well as play soccer. Annah was also drawn to MTC due to their girl-centered programs and opportunities they offer to mainly marginalized girls including orphans. Later, Annah began to see value in sharing experiences especially through interactions with career tutors and other resource people MTC regularly engages to speak with the girls. Through these interactions, Annah continues to learn about self-discipline, teamwork, self-advocacy and leadership. Annah hopes to learn more on girls’ rights, fighting child marriages, challenging gender stereotypes and finding ways to work with people living with disabilities. Annah says she is inspired by the work of MTC founder Maka Chikowero.
Apart from playing soccer and supporting MTC activities, Anna enjoys reading in her leisure time.

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Tariro Mhandu


​Head Coach
​
​Tariro Mhandu is volunteer head coach of MTC Sirens Soccer Club, an affiliate of MTC Foundation. Born and educated in Nhedziwa, Chimanimani, Tariro has intimate knowledge of her community, its challenges and potential. Tariro says she is inspired by seeing girls and young women overcome hardships. Although she does not hold a soccer coaching license, Tariro has had opportunities to shadow experienced coaches at Maningi Queens FC in Harare. In her role as MTC Sirens head coach, Tariro brings the best out of the girls and young women in the soccer program; the simple joys of learning soccer drills, organizing matches, hosting visiting clubs, assigning roles to her players and other fun activities. Tariro has the unique challenge of using sport to teach girls and women from different family backgrounds, including orphaned ones, about the problem of child marriage in Chimanimani. In addition to soccer coaching, Tariro is also tasked with building a program that helps the girls and young women in the MTC programs navigate adolescence including managing relationships, abstinence and sexuality, child marriage and finding pathways out of poverty. Tariro organizes sessions with career guidance resource people, law enforcement agents, community healthcare and sports coaches to visit and interact with her players.
Tariro hopes to attain a soccer coaching license in the near future.