Eluka Chelu Kibona
Adviser, DFID Tanzania; founder, Voices of Young Women; member, TGNP Mtandao
“To achieve gender justice, we must empower women and girls to become agents of change.”
Leadership: Eluka Chelu Kibona is an organizer and advocate for gender equality and justice, with a focus on addressing issues faced by groups that have lacked access to formal education and employment. She works as a social development adviser at the Department for International Development (DFID) Tanzania and has a decade of prior experience at organizations like CARE International Tanzania, the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), and Oxfam Tanzania. Eluka founded and coordinates Voices of Young Women, a feminist forum that aims to give agency to young women challenging traditional gender norms and addressing economic justice. She is also a member of the Tanzanian feminist organization TGNP Mtandao and a board member at ForumCC, a climate change-based network.
Vision: In Tanzania, women and girls bear the brunt of poverty and gender-based violence, and early gender socialization too often limits their full potential. Eluka’s work addresses the intersectionality of systemic oppression, empowering women and girls as agents of change to build social, political, and economic power.