Our Team

Darren Blankenship is glad join Fistula Foundation as Database Administrator. Darren brings over twenty years of experience working with various Bay Area non-profits and educational institutions. His passion is for systems integration and data integrity, and he is excited to bring this to Fistula Foundation. He holds a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time with his family, reading science fiction, and catching up on recent developments in science and technology.

Kelly Anderson is pleased to join the dedicated team at Fistula Foundation as Senior Director of Philanthropy.

Kelly’s commitment to women’s health and social justice began as a sexual assault crisis line volunteer at the University of Michigan. After two decades in leadership roles in rape crisis centers – first in Washington, DC and then in Madison, Wisc. where she worked to expand service for underserved communities – she moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 2015 to serve as CEO of the Nepal Youth Foundation.

In addition to her professional experience, Kelly has engaged in related volunteer and community activities. In DC, she co-founded and served as the president of a small non-profit that supports women unable to afford medical treatment, spent six years as a mentor at BeFriend a Child, and served on the Washington Area Women’s Foundation grants committee. In Madison, her commitments included chairing the Dane County Commission on Sensitive Crimes and the Community Coordinated Response on Sexual Assault, serving as a board member of the Hancock Center for Dance/Movement Therapy, and fostering and rehabilitating rescue dogs.

Originally from the Midwest, Kelly is thrilled to be able hike and backpack in the stunning mountain ranges of northern California. She finds joy and satisfaction in her role connecting generous, compassionate individuals with the world of good they can help accomplish.

Mirabel Miscala joined Fistula Foundation in December 2015. As Digital Engagement Manager, Mirabel is delighted to communicate Fistula Foundation’s work through exciting and innovative means. Graduating from San Jose State with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Digital Media Art, Mirabel holds a background in web technologies, content management, and various digital skills in diverse fields. Prior to the Foundation, Mirabel has worked in multiple roles and projects relating to web and technology, including teaching for classrooms and content production for start-ups. Influenced by Silicon Valley tech culture, she holds a passion for the arts and technology, bringing start-up experience and creative skills to the team. Mirabel is excited to contribute innovative skills in supporting the Foundation’s excellent projects, while helping women in need.

Pam is a seasoned strategist who combines expertise in digital communications with a lifelong passion for medicine and human health. Most recently as Content Lead for Stanford Health Care, Pam developed an enterprise content program for the health system’s network of complex-care and primary clinics, solving for key touch points across the care journey Pam’s commitment to service-driven communications builds on earlier experience as a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and roles at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco and Centro Adelante Campesino, a migrant farmworker center in AZ. In her free time, Pam enjoys cycling, climbing and mixed-art projects.

Tarah DeSousa joined Fistula Foundation in July 2021 as Senior Writer for Marketing Communications. She brings with her six years of experience in nonprofit communications, including media and public relations, content marketing, and internal communications. In addition to her public relations role at ACT, the global education nonprofit, Tarah led communications for ACT’s internal volunteer organization, facilitating donation drives for women’s organizations in Iowa, like the Domestic Violence Intervention Program, and generating positive broadcast coverage for ACT. She has volunteered for women’s organizations like the Iowa Women’s Foundation, using her communications expertise to promote economic self-sufficiency for women and girls. Tarah is a graduate of American University (MA, Strategic Communications) and the University of Iowa (BA, Journalism & Mass Communications). She believes that messages hold immense power and hopes to use her gift for communications to empower donor action and transform the lives of women across the world.

Dr. Andrew Browning AM is an Australian trained obstetrician and gynecologist who has worked in Ethiopia and Tanzania for more than 17 years as a senior fistula surgeon.

Dr. Browning’s life mission has been to help women suffering with obstetric fistula in Africa.

As a young doctor, he was inspired to become a fistula surgeon after visiting his aunt, Valerie Browning, in rural Ethiopia as she assisted women with terrible childbirth injuries. Deeply moved, Andrew decided to train under the legendary Dr. Catherine Hamlin at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. In the 17 years that have passed, Dr. Browning has provided life-changing surgery to women across Africa and Asia.

With the help of his obstetrician father, Dr. David Browning, he founded the Barbara May Foundation in Australia in 2009, providing volunteer midwives and obstetricians for emergency maternity services in district hospitals, and training for local staff.

Dr. Browning has led a team that have gone on to transform several rundown health centers into safe and functional maternal health centers for poor women, and those living in remote regions.

In an effort to help the more than one million women estimated to be suffering with existing obstetric fistula injuries throughout Africa, Dr. Browning continues to provide fistula camps in Malawi, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Chad, Uganda, Congo, South Sudan and Togo.

Dr. Browning also consults on global maternal healthcare issues to United Nations Fund for Population Activities and the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO).  Andrew recently was appointed chair of the Fistula Expert Advisory Group at FIGO.  Recently, he was named as a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia in recognition of his “outstanding contributions” to improving maternal healthcare for women in poverty.

Fistula Foundation is thrilled to have Dr. Andrew Browning on our team!

Habiba C. Mohamed is the Country Director in Fistula Foundation’s Kenya office and has worked with the Foundation since 2014. In that time, she has been instrumental to designing the outreach and reintegration components of Fistula Foundation’s countrywide network—the first fistula treatment model of its kind.

Before joining Fistula Foundation, Ms. Mohamed had nearly a decade of experience working on fistula programming. She began her career as a veterinarian, assisting livestock farmers in western Kenya. Through her close contact with these rural communities, she became familiar with the socioeconomic challenges they experience and became passionate about working with marginalized women. In 2006, she founded Women and Development Against Distress in Africa (WADADIA), a Kenyan nonprofit that advocates for women’s rights and reproductive health. While serving as lead director of WADADIA, Ms. Mohamed also supported a UNFPA-funded community program for six years, and served as a consultant program specialist for One By One, a US-based nonprofit focused on fistula treatment.

Ms. Mohamed is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Kenyatta University. She holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in the same subject from Mt. Kenya University, and has a higher diploma in Social Work and Community Development. Her research on the psychological effects of obstetric fistula has been published in the International Journal of Sciences, and the verbal screening tool she developed has improved identification of fistula cases. Under her leadership, Fistula Foundation’s treatment network has provided care to over six thousand women and counting.

Nelson Musa is Monitoring & Evaluation Officer of Fistula Foundation’s nationwide treatment network in Kenya. He brings fourteen years of experience in organizing and community health. Prior to joining Fistula Foundation, Nelson worked as an organizer for Jhpiego, and currently partners with WADADIA (Women and Development Against Distress in Africa), a key Fistula Foundation partner in Western Kenya.

Nelson holds a Higher Diploma in Psychological Counseling from the Kenya Institute of Professional Counseling, as well as a Certificate in Management from the Kenya Institute of Management.

Bwalya Magawa Chomba is the Program Director for the Fistula Foundation Zambia office. Bwalya is responsible for supporting referrals for fistula patients to partner hospitals, serves as key liaison between the hospitals and the community, and strengthens partnerships with government ministries and community and faith-based organizations.

Bwalya has been working as a Social Worker and Community Development Officer for 13 years, most recently based with the Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare in Nakonde District. Bwalya has also worked with Caritas / Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Mpika Diocese, where she worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, coordinating revisions of project strategies with key stakeholders and ensuring a shared understanding of strategic and informational needs. During her tenure as District Development Facilitator with the NGO Africare Zambia, she learned about obstetric fistula and took up an active role in mobilizing suffering women, successfully referring 200 women for life-transforming surgery.

She has always believed that local community participation is an important way to achieve sustainable development, particularly in the fight against obstetric fistula. Bwalya holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Mulungushi University in Kabwe, Zambia.

Kalumba Kaputa is a Program Officer at Fistula Foundation’s Zambia office. He collaborates with the Ministry of Health and local grassroots organizations, screening potential fistula patients and referring them to treatment centers for care in Zambia’s Luapula Province.

Prior to joining Fistula Foundation, Kalumba worked for 8 years as a Clinical Officer for the Zambian Ministry of Health, serving as a frontline health provider at Chilonga Mission General Hospital. He has also served in roles at the Mpepo Rural Health Centre and the Mpika District Health Office. Kalumba holds a diploma in Basic Clinical Medical Sciences in Mental Health and Psychiatry from the University of Zambia School of Medicine in Association with Chainama College of Health Sciences.

Kalumba strongly feels that unity and team work are essential for any organization to achieve its key objectives, especially in the fight against obstetric fistula.

Jordan Chileshe Chomba works for the Fistula Foundation Zambia Office as a motor vehicle driver based in the Eastern Province. He provides transportation and travel logistics to the Zambia team and other relevant officials and helps deliver equipment and materials for the program.

Jordan holds a valid SADC driver’s license Class C and has over 10 years of driving experience, mainly working with security firms and educational institutions. Jordan is touched and motivated by the tremendous work Fistula Foundation does reaching out to suffering women who lack the resources to access treatment.

Precious Banda joined Fistula Foundation in 2020 as an Administrative Officer based in the Mansa office in Luapula Province. She manages calls from the fistula hotline, screens potential patients, and refers women to their nearest treatment center. She also handles administrative work, including tracking expenses and preparing patient logistics before surgery.

Precious holds a Peer Education certificate from Copperbelt Health Education Project (CHEP) after working with CHEP for one year, a certificate in public relations from Zambia Institute of Business Studies and Industrial Practice (ZIPSIP), and an Art Teacher’s Diploma from Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka, Zambia. Before joining Fistula Foundation, she worked as a volunteer at a secondary school for six months.

Precious has deep empathy for the women she supports because she personally suffered from fistula for a year. She is very grateful that she received treatment and was able to start a new life. She has therefore dedicated herself to helping other women experiencing the same situation.

Kelly Brennan is a Managing Director at Citadel Securities. She runs the global ETF business and specializes in helping clients to execute large trades in US and global exchange traded funds and equities. Prior to joining Citadel, Kelly managed several teams within Goldman Sach’s Securities Division in New York for nearly thirteen years. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an associate and was named managing director in 2010. Kelly started her career at Susquehanna International Group as an equity and equity derivatives trader. Kelly is an active member of Women in ETFs and served on Goldman Sachs’ Women’s Network. She was on the advisory council for Goldman Sachs Hispanic/Latino Network. She has served as member of Two Together, a mentoring program for disadvantaged youth in Manhattan and volunteer for Puppies Behind Bars.Kelly earned a BA in Political Economies with a concentration in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000.

Ling Yang Lew serves as senior legal counsel at Apple. She previously worked at the County of Santa Clara, where she served as an advice attorney to the County’s health and hospital system, which provides safety-net health services. Prior to law school, Ling worked in health economics research. Ling is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Duke University.

Gillian Slinger is a Midwife and holds a BSc in Health Management, an MSc in Public Health, and a Teaching Certificate. After completing her Nurse and Midwifery training in the UK, Gillian worked as a Midwife for 10 years in French speaking Switzerland, before joining Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) and Save the Children as a field Midwife and Trainer in numerous countries, including Mali, Chad, DRC, Kenya and Sierra Leone. As part of her MSF duties, Gillian managed maternal health programs in more than 20 countries across Africa and Asia, and had an active role developing projects for women with obstetric fistula.

In the last 15 years, she has become an international activist for fistula and her involvement in fistula work has increased considerably, taking her to New York for 4 years to head the global Campaign to End Fistula with UNFPA, where she was instrumental in establishing the UN approved International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, and bringing her to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) in London in 2014 to undertake her present role, leading the FIGO Fistula Surgery Training Initiative.

Gillian also teaches in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and has recently served on the Board of Directors of MSF Switzerland

He has been a consistent major fundraiser for Democratic Senatorial Candidates and worked on fundraising committees for the Kerry and Obama Presidential campaigns. He started out doing pro-bono legal representation of draft resisters during the Vietnam War. From 2003-2014 Rob was a valued member of Fistula Foundation’s board of directors, helping guide the Foundation through profound change. He served for many years on the Executive Committee of the board, when the board was larger than it is today. He is currently volunteering as a mentor to fourth and fifth grade students at a public school in Manhattan.