Carolyn’s resolve to pioneer change in her sphere of work

Arusha. Carolyn Kandusi is now a cemented household name in social development circles who is actively touching people’s lives through her work.

She is the Regional Senior Program Officer at Segal Family Foundation who also strives to empower generations in the fields of entrepreneurship, communications, and technology.

Her current role has seen Carolyn spearheading foundation strategies for Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, driving over $10 million in investment to visionary African leaders in different sectors.

She is also a co-founder of Westerwelle Startup Haus Arusha (formerly known as Obuntu Hub), a youth hub in Arusha, which provides business development services and co-working space.

Her educational background is in Mass Communications, which Carolyn studied at St John’s University of Tanzania and even against her father’s wishes to pursue law, Carolyn found a home in communications.

Her career journey began when she was offered a tutorial assistant role at the same university after she graduated with flying colours.

A year later, Carolyn began working for (Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited) Tanesco and was one of the founding supervisors of Tanesco’s call centre.

“This call centre was meant to transform Tanesco and make it more customer-centred. The centre intended to identify and solve the problems faced by the customer immediately after they place a call,” she details.

In 2011, she saw an advert for a Research and Communications role at Pingos Forum and decided that it was time she put her Communications degree to practice. She decided to apply for the role and was interviewed for it.

“A few days later, I got a call to inform me that I did not pass the interview, however, they were impressed with my interview and offered me the Gender and Public Relations Managerial role on the spot. I accepted and was directly taken to a two-week training about pastoral living as a livelyhood,” she details.

Carolyn explains that this organisation is a forum that represents indigenous communities in Tanzania, including the Hadzabe and the Masaai.

Among the first things Carolyn worked on was interacting with these communities and she could not help but notice the gender inequality between men and women in those societies.

“Most of my colleagues and the community I first interacted with were men, I had to ask ‘Where are the women?’ because I wanted to see more of myself in my workplace. I was taken to a community centre and found the women there. It dawned on me that I was a part of two different worlds where men and women had different gender roles,” she explains.

Around 2013, the government was collecting opinions that were meant to inspire the new constitution.

The indigenous communities were also advocating to get representation and acknowledgment of their communal land rights in the government.

Carolyn noticed an opportunity to motivate gender equality in the indigenous communities and decided to take it.

“I explained to them that since in the country’s constitution, gender equality stands tall, it should be the same in the Maasai’s constitution. That is when the rise of movements to fight for the rights of women in these communities began,” she recalls.

In 2015, Carolyn was selected as one of the first Cohort of Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) East Africa Regional Leadership Centre. As she interacted with the other fellows in the cohort, she could not help but notice that out of ten Tanzanians, only two where from Arusha.

The other fellow was named Collins Kimaro. While the other Tanzanians especially those from Dar es Salaam were exposed to different opportunities that landed them in YALI, it was a different case for those from other regions.

Their interactions motivated Carolyn and Collins to establish Obuntu Hub with the intent to bring closer different opportunities to the residents of Arusha and northern Tanzania.

The space is now a home to over 50 start-ups and a community of over 1400 youth who are going through trainin in different programs.

“This hub has given me meaning in my career because I wanted to work in a place where my daily bread equalled my daily dose of impact in the society that surrounds me and I’m doing exactly that through this hub,” she explains.

Before she joined the Segal Family Foundation as the Senior Program Officer in 2018, Carolyn fell in love with the vision of the organisation.

“The primary goal of this foundation is to champion and support African visionaries who are doing a great job of solving challenges in their societies. We do that through capacity training and partnerships that assist in maximising their impact in the societies they serve,” she explains.

Among the things in her work life that bring Carolyn fulfillment is her engagement with these problem solvers.

She lives for the moments when the organisations and individuals she works with get their deserved recognition for the work they do.

“I work with a lot of amazing innovators in Africa who provide different solutions to solve challenges in the continent. These people are piloting out issues as they figure out their own paths over time. In such a world filled with trailblazers from different sectors, I could not help but become a believer in the saying ‘anything is possible’ because every day in my work, I interact with solution providers of problems that were once deemed impossible to solve,” she details.

Carolyn reveals that among the lessons that she has picked from her experience is taking leaps of faith.

“There are moments when a person is challenged by the ‘ifs’ in their minds and this can put restrict them from moving their career mountains, however, they have to trust themselves and do things that scare them,” she emphasises.

Carolyn further details: “Change will always happen whether you want it to or not, especially in the early years of one’s career journey. Instead of running away from that truth, you have to learn to embrace it while improving your skills to favour that change. It can be discouraging in the beginning but there is always light at the end of the tunnel, as long as you are intentional about your goals.”