Rona Foundation – Our Staff

Roseline Orwa – Founder & Director

Roseline is a social entrepreneur with a focus on gender and rural development. She holds a non-graduate degree in Public Relations and Communication from Daystar University, Diploma in Printing and Graphic design from the Technical University of Kenya, and a Diploma in Project Management and Innovation. In addition, she has undertaken a number of short courses in the area of gender, Media and Advocacy. Roseline is a lifelong Fellow of the Atlantic Social Economic and Equity Program at the London School of Economics for social and economic equity. And an Aspen 2021 Fellow.
Roseline has worked with both county and state, and consulted with different local and global civil organisations on widow rights.  Ms. Roseline Orwa is an experienced grass root gender and development expert with a wealth of experience spanning over 10 years. She has major competencies in; Sex and Gender Based Violence issues, Gender mainstreaming, and Rural Women empowerment programs in Kenya. She is also well versed in public policy advocacy, access to gender justice, and general gender mainstreaming particularly in livelihoods, agriculture and micro-finance.
Roseline is an international award winning widow advocate, a chapter leader with Modern Widows Club, and also serves as an appointed Commissioned Expert with the Ministry of Labour and Social Services in Kenya.

Pascalia Ogutu – Project Assistant

Pascalia holds a Diploma in Community Development and Social Work and has trained with a variety of organizations to acquire knowledge in Peer Education, Family Matters and Gender Based Violence.
Since 2017, Pascalia has been working with Rona Foundation as a social worker & project assistant in the Programs Department. She enjoys interacting with the children and speaking with the widows about their situations. Pascalia is also in charge of the office administration work.
As a Project Assistant, Pascalia keeps track of general administrative work and support to projects, under the direction of more experienced project management skills. She helps in producing proposals, plans and reports, organising and maintaining project files and databases and also supervising projects in progress and ensuring that all issues related to the projects are clarified and completed to avoid confusion and interruption during execution of projects.

Stephen Oyucho – Project Accountant

Stephen Oyucho is an accomplished accountant, grant writer, M & E program consultant and resource mobilizer in Kenya.  His career involves working with grassroots organisations with hands-on experience on organisational needs, with a broadened professional ethics and commitment to work. He is a graduate of Moi University (2011) and holds a Bachelor of Business Management and a Diploma in Social Sciences.
Stephen worked with USAID Project-PHASE 2 from 2015 to 2017, as a project coordinator and played a great role in mobilisation, coordination and consultancy guidance to its successful completion. He mobilised and empowered the community that the projects covered including Kisumu, Migori, Homabay and Kisii counties in Western Kenya, including grant management and implementation of the project.
He has a wide experience in grant writing & M &E consultancy with many projects within the country and has contributed to the success of the projects such as IPAK, Matata Hospital, Nyayo Hospital, Gendia Mission amongst others.
He has also worked with Barclays Bank and with Nestlé International as a chief accountant.
Stephen holds a unique set of creative, innovative and interpersonal skills giving him an ability to connect with diverse group of people while employing critical thinking in problem solving. His future goal is to connect with people and helps in transforming peoples live across the World.

Valentine Linette – Research Assisant

Valentine Linette, is a recent University graduate with a Bachelors Degree in Sociology from Pwani University.
She has 3 years experience of working with Rona Foundation as an attachee and currently holds the positon of a Research Assistant at Rona Foundation, working closely with the Programmes Department team.
Valentine specialises in all the field work activities, including conducting literature reviews, analyzing data & reports secondary data to be approved by the Executive Research team. In addition, she is responsible for empowering & educating research participants. She has also written blogs on Covid-19: Widowhood “Agency”, Exposed Burdens, Culture and Gender Allies and Covid-19: Widows Speak on Dead Jobs, Virtual Funerals & The New Normal in Siaya. She is a member of the International Women Peace Group (IWPG).
Valentine is a powerful force in the workplace and uses her positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. She also enjoys interacting and encouraging young girls about their situations.

Mildred Oloo – Field Mobilizer

Mildred Oloo works at Rona Foundation as the Field Mobilizer and a chama educator who trains and manages group dynamics for Rona groups. She is also a tailoring tutor who holds a Certificate in Tailoring from Kokise Technical Collage and also works as tutor at Rona Tailoring School (ROTAS). Mildred enjoys using her skills into empower and educate widows in entrepreneurship & leadership knowledge. Among other roles, she also supports programming activities at the field level, including: recruiting and verifying participants; coordinating logistics for activities (trainings and workshops) implemented in project sites; coaching and mentoring of widow’s participants and monitoring of the widow’s groups.

Michael Oidho – Admin Assistant, Driver & Tailor

Mike holds a certificate in fashion and design. He joined Rona foundation in 2008 as a designer, tailor  and a driver. And currently works as an administrative assistant, and runs general office errands and duties.
Mike is a good problem solver, who relates well with the children and the widows. He is easy to talk to, and people find him more comfortable to share with. He resolves in-depth queries in a methodical manner independently and with internal and external business partners to find appropriate resolutions, efficiencies and high level of quality. He is a good team player and enjoys sharing knowledge and encouraging development of others to achieve specific team goals. Mike has the institutional memory and remains an asset to both the team, Board and partners.

Oscar Odhiambo – Technical Assistant-Systems Development

Oscar Otieno holds a Bachelor of Science in Information and Communication Technology Management and a Diploma in Computer Systems Engineering and Hardware Maintenance.
Currently Oscar is in charge of Technological advancements, he works together with the our team on system utilization, takes lead in systems implementation, advice on any system requirement needed, reports system issues to the third party, keeps track of Information Technology systems inventory, carries out maintenance to electrical record servers and there databases.
With the responsibility of a system admin,he takes backup of databases and take lead in any advances in our holistic technology concerns.
When not trying to solve a technological issue, Oscar likes to listen to music

Stephen Onyango – Rona Centre Manager

Onyango is an all-round person, who is handy and coordinates the activities at Rona Centre with dedication, as well as managing the the projects within the centre with a deep insight. He gets along well with the children and the widows. He is fun, easy to talk to, funny and engaging. He resolves challenges independently and with his added skills in carpentry and mechanics he finds appropriate resolutions, efficiently and with a high level of quality. He is self-driven, a good team player and enjoys sharing knowledge and encourages development of others to achieve specific team goals. Onyango is familiar with the history of the village and is conversant with rural needs and challenges. He is supportive to the Rona Team, Board and partners.