Kesho is the registered U.S. nonprofit organization that works as an umbrella to facilitate the work of LOHADA in Tanzania. All donations made on this site are made through Kesho.
Emily Kobayashi, MPH
Board Member
Senior Director, Noncommunicable Diseases
Clinton Health Access Initiative
Emily Kobayashi is a public health professional with 15 years of experience focused on implementation of public health programs, primarily in Africa. Her early experience ranged from being a student activist on global health issues, managing community-based HIV services in Tanzania, and supporting global health supply chain. She was a volunteer for Lohada in 2002 and served as Camp Manager for a year 2004-2005.
Since 2012, she has worked with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). She began in the CHAI Malawi country office working on the children’s health portfolio, led the Lesotho office as Country Director, and has most recently served as a Director on the New Market Opportunities Team and Global Cancer Team. Highlights include childhood vaccine introductions in Malawi and Lesotho; new program initiations in Lesotho; strategy development on noncommunicable diseases; and leading innovative work on chemotherapy access in Africa.
In her current role with CHAI, Emily supports development and implementation of global agreements to increase the availability of cancer medications in low resource settings. Emily holds a Bachelors in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a Masters of Public Health with a specialization in Global Health from Emory University, and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two children. Her Kiswahili is kizuri sana.
Rob Glickman
Board Member
Interim CMO Consultant
Valencia, Spain
Rob is a technology industry veteran who has served in a broad range of marketing leadership roles at companies such as eBay, PayPal, SAP and Symantec over the past 20 years. A full-stack and metrics-driven marketer, Glickman has broad expertise in positioning, demand generation, corporate, product, partner, and industry marketing. At eBay Rob led eBay’s international expansion efforts across Europe and Asia, led marketing for the Spanish eBay business in Madrid and eventually went on to lead global marketing for PayPal. More recently, as Chief Marketing Officer at Arm Treasure Data, Rob Glickman led the go-to-market strategy for a leading Customer Data Platform, acquired by Arm/Softbank in 2018. Since then Rob has served as a CMO for various fintechs and currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Wise.us, a financial technology firm based in San Mateo, CA.
Rob received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Skidmore College, and his Master of Business Administration degree in Marketing and Finance from Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management. Rob is fluent in Spanish and Italian with dual US and EU citizenship. He is married to his wife, Tina, whom he met in grad school and they have two children.
Happiness Wambura
Founder of LOHADA
Arusha, Tanzania
Happiness Wambura (Mama Wambura) is the founder of LOHADA, a non-profit organization since 1998 serving disadvantaged children and elderly in Arusha and Shinyanga, Tanzania. As a pastor’s wife and mother, Wambura couldn’t ignore the plight of the street children in Arusha. She brought them food and gathered several under a large tree in the town center to teach them games and songs.
LOHADA was officially registered in October 2000. Now, LOHADA has four centers. Camp Joshua Christian School opened in 2005; it is a primary school for 240 children, mostly from Unga Limited and other nearby slums. Camp Moses, built in Arusha in 2004, is home to 60 secondary school students who have graduated from Camp Joshua School. Camp Patmos, in the rural region of Shinyanga, serves marginalized children and destitute elderly people accused of witchcraft.
Happiness Wambura lives in Arusha, Tanzania with her husband, Pastor Timothy Wambura as well as more than a dozen teenagers and young adults who need extra help after graduating from Camp Joshua. The couple has five grown children and XXXX grandchildren.
Tina Ashamalla
Chair of the Board
Valencia, Spain
With a lifelong desire to focus her energies on the non-profit sector, Tina was side tracked after graduate school by the tech boom and student loans and ended up at a start-up in Silicon Valley where she put her marketing and advertising skills to use. It was after this small start-up collapsed in 2001 that her and a friend decided to head out to Tanzania for a volunteer opportunity. A chance meeting with Mama Wambura would connect her to Tanzania long after her month long volunteer program ended when she decided to help Mama W. set up her own volunteer program and website.
Tina’s professional experience includes stints in marketing, events and social media for high tech companies Oracle and NetApp. It was during her years at Oracle that she began organizing small fundraising events with friends and family to raise the money to buy the land for Camp Joshua and recruited her brother, Mike, to build and maintain Lohada’s first official website. As volunteers began to pour in from around the globe, she focused on her own family and marveled from a distance as Mama Wambura grew her organization.
During her five years at NetApp, Tina helped organize events for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a non-profit devoted to funding research for childhood cancer research, after her own husband and daughter battled cancer. She and her family have organized events and fundraisers that have raised over a million dollars for research.
An avid traveller, Tina lives in Valencia, Spain with her husband, Rob, and their two children. They met at the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management while getting their MBA’s.
Robin Chenoweth
Founder and Treasurer
Communications Specialist, College of Education & Human Ecology
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Robin is an award-winning communications specialist at Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology. She is a chief writer for the college’s communications team, producing magazine articles and web content about K-12 education, diversity and equity issues and higher education. She produces and appears in the college’s Inspire podcast, which focuses on education and racial equity concerns.
She was previously program coordinator for the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio State University which trains mid-career journalists.
Robin has worked as a writer in Columbus, Ohio, covering environmental and social issues, health, travel, and home/garden stories for the Columbus Dispatch, Habitat World and other nonprofit publications. She has traveled throughout Africa, writing about housing disparities, health issues, child abuse as well as orphaned and destitute children.
Robin founded Kesho, the U.S. nonprofit organization that supports LOHADA.
Doral Chenoweth III
Chairman Emeritus
Videographer for Dispatch.com
Columbus, Ohio
Doral joined the Columbus Dispatch in 1990 as a staff photographer. His photojournalism work has covered several social issues including the heroin crisis, and the lack of affordable housing for low-income people. In 2009 he became a videographer for dispatch.com, the newspaper’s website.
His photography has appeared in the New York Times and other American newspapers, The (London) Daily Mail, TIME magazine, USA Today, and National Geographic.
Book credits include America 24/7, Ohio 24/7, The National Press Photographer’s Association Best of Photojournalism, and a book celebrating Habitat For Humanity’s 25th anniversary.
In January 2011 he produced a video about Ted Williams, a homeless man with a golden radio voice. The video was viewed more than 144 million times on YouTube.
Doral and his wife, Robin, live in the Columbus suburb of Clintonville and have two children, Cassie and Kurtis.
Sarah Derbew
Secretary
Assistant Professor, Classics
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
Sarah’s love for Tanzania began in her freshman year at Haverford College when she started learning Swahili. In an effort to strengthen her language skills, she organized a trip to Arusha in 2007 through her college’s Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. During this transformative summer, she witnessed the intense work ethic and dedication of LOHADA staff and students. On subsequent visits, she spearheaded service-learning and educational projects for the teenagers at LOHADA. She remains grateful to them, Mama Wambura, and her family for continually welcoming her to the fold.
Sarah received her Ph.D. in Classics from Yale University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship (Society of Fellows) at Harvard University. She is currently an assistant professor of Classics at Stanford University in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. She is also affiliated with the Center for African Studies.
Tricia Allenby
Board Member
Physician
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Tricia and her husband, Greg, heard about Lohada from the Chenoweths and were blessed to host Timothy and Happiness Wambura in their home in 2013. The bond was instantly formed with Tricia and Greg making their first trip to Tanzania three months later. Trips to Tanzania increased in regularity with Tricia becoming more involved in working with John Wambura at Golden Grace Dispensary and now Health Center in Shinyanga.
Tricia is a pathologist at OSU Wexner Medical Center and has organized several medical and non-medical missionary trips to Tanzania with physicians, medical residents and students working at Golden Grace and Camp Joshua. Groups have also led Vacation Bible School programs at Camp Joshua.
Greg and Tricia are currently involved in many ministries in Tanzania as a result of relationships formed. In addition to the above, Greg has accompanied students from OSU doing solar energy projects, working with Jacob Wambura on the Mt. Horeb farm initiative to provide food and vocational training for Camp Joshua students, joining with Pastor Timothy Wambura in his Leadership School in Raranya and most recently partnering with the Maasai village of Eluai’s mission of educating girls and opening a Bible Center.
Truly, the opportunities for relational ministry are endless in Tanzania. The special character of Lohada is working directly with the Wambura family. We are all volunteers and there are no organizational costs – we do this because of our love for them and those served. God’s hand is on these people and it is a privilege to be part of it!
Karen Jacobs
Board Member, Donor Relations
Registered Nurse, retired
Columbus, Ohio
Karen is a retired Registered Nurse whose career spanned nearly forty years. Initially, she was set upon studying history and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a B.A. in History. Upon graduation, she felt a spiritual “calling” to be a nurse. She attended The Christ Hospital School of Nursing and the University of Cincinnati. The school’s motto, “Summo Commisso Missi” – “On Highest Mission” and the Biblical phrase, “…Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me…” (Matthew 25:40 KJV), became her guiding principles in her nursing practice and spiritual life. Her career encompassed Oncology, Hospice and Home care, Women’s Health, Alzheimer’s care, Staff Development, Psychiatry, and designated as a Clinical Preceptor for nursing students.
Karen and her husband Paul have one child, Valerie who is now married with her own daughter. Her attention is now directed to being a loving and fun grandmother, which brings her great joy. Karen enjoys reading, learning, painting, and walking. Because of her passion for community justice, Karen is a food pantry driver delivering food to the impoverished throughout the city of Columbus, Ohio.
Karen’s friendship with Robin and Doral Chenoweth led to a sponsorship of a child through LOHADA. As soon as she saw Doral’s photos and heard the stories of the children, she knew she had to be involved. Meeting Pastor Timothy Wambura and Happiness Wambura deepened her commitment to “On Highest Mission.” She is honored to serve on this Board, and hopes to be an advocate and a voice for the children of LOHADA.
Diane Engelhardt
Board Member
Oncology nurse, retired
Tampa, Florida
Diane is a retired homemaker/nurse. She received a BSN from Valparaiso University and spent most of her younger adult years working in oncology nursing in various settings. She found that covering family responsibilities for her husband who travelled extensively for his work and parenting 4 children (one of whom has special needs) made it most difficult to continue working in the nursing field. She set out on a different course in life of volunteering and travel.
She first visited LOHADA in 2013 on her second visit to Tanzania. This significant event changed her perspective on how to truly help across the thousands of miles between Arusha and random parts of the western world. She is active on the Missions Advisory Council of her church (Bay Hope in Lutz, Florida) and has continued a close relationship with Happiness Wambura and all the challenges she faces. In November 2019 she helped organize a trip for Sun Coast Kids Place administrators to conduct a three-day seminar for child caregivers, advocates and teachers in Arusha regarding the way children process grief. A subsequent trip is planned when travel is permitted. She is also currently working with Elinaja Lyimo, a community leader in Arusha who is building a Community Center in a slum region of the city.
She lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband Dave and son, Rob. She is happy to have her other three children and their families nearby including four grandchildren and three grand puppies.