Meet the WoMena Team: Simone Kjær Jensen

This is part of WoMena’s Meet the Team series, to introduce you to the wonderful people who carry out our mission on a day-to-day basis. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Simone Kjær Jensen, from WoMena’s Project Management Team.

Hello, Simone! Where are you from and where are you currently based?

I am from Denmark, and currently I am based both in Uganda and Denmark. Three months one place, a couple of months the other place and so on.

What is your role in WoMena?

I started as Administration Officer doing primarily administrative tasks. Eventually, I became the Programme Manager of a couple of projects. Now, I am doing project-related work and still take on some admin responsibilities.

How did you first get involved with WoMena?

I was living with Katrine Sørensen, who was an intern with WoMena, in Uganda. I followed her work from the sideline for a while, and when I suddenly had some free time, she suggested I got involved since I was heading back to Uganda again. I have a MA in African Studies and had some experience with admin work, and that is what WoMena needed at the time. I have never worked in health before, so that has been a learning process!

What is your favorite part of working with WoMena?

It is probably getting the experience that I would not be offered in many other places. I get to try a lot of things and learn a lot of things while I’m doing it. I have learned so much about health, menstruation, sexual reproductive health and so on, and it seems like all of us are learning everyday in our interaction. These are still taboo subjects that people are not entirely comfortable discussing, which is very interesting when it is such a natural thing.

What are some of your priorities right now? What’s on your plate for the near future?

Hm, there are some different priorities that I am working with:
1) We are planning a scale up with Welthungerhilfe in Karamoja of about 200 women based on very positive feedback from the pilot project;
2) Evaluation of the Communication Intervention with Radio Wa; and
3) Finalising the WoMena promotion video.

On a more continous basis I am also looking into the membership system to see how it can become more effective and easy to oversee.

Wow, thank you for all the wonderful work you’re doing. We look forward to keeping up with you!