To Our Esteemed Visitors, Ladies and Gentlemen, First of all I would like to take this opportunity to CONGRATULATE all MEWATA members for celebrating twenty years of working together in the association so as to improve the health of women, youths and children. We appreciate the efforts made by our founder members under the leadership of Prof Esther Mwaikambo to have the idea to start the Medical Women Association of Tanzania.

Secondly our sincere appreciation to all our collaborators and donors for making us to be able to realize with great success our laid down objectives. We thank you for the support you offered for twenty years.

For the past twenty years we have seen ourselves growing in many aspects. There had been a tremendous increase in the number of female medical doctors from tens to hundreds. As an association we have accomplished very successfully a number of projects which are highlighted in some areas in our website. We are still working on various projects for the few coming years like construction of the Well Women Clinic here in Dar es Salaam, and facilitating donation of nine mammography machines to nine regions in the country and breast cancer campaigns in Lindi and Kilimanjaro/Arusha and Manyara regions.

The challenges we have faced in running our association are many but to mention a few:

• Limited office space.
• Lack of sustainable funding.
• Limited time to work for the association as all members are employed in various organizations.
• Lack of a secretariat that will relieve the association leadership with heavy administrative work.

Efforts to address some of these challenges are in place. For example the new clinic will offer enough space for the offices as well, writing grants for administrative costs is on the way too. We hope in the next few years we will be able to address all the challenges and implement our strategic plan in the three main thematic areas of Reproductive Health & Rights, HIV/AIDS, and Health Professional and Institutional Advancement.

Once again thank you very much for the great cooperation we had from our stakeholders especially ITV/Radio One, WAMA and all those who have contributed to our existence. “Gundua mapema saratani ya matiti kupunguza vifo”

Long Live MEWATA!

Dr Marina Alois Njelekela,
Chairperson,
MEWATA.