Margaret Odera

Margaret Odera is a community health worker and mentor mother, reporting at Mathare North health center, her neighbourhood. She spends her day to day time doing mobilizations, sensitization, referrals, linkages and follow ups. As a mentor mother ,she follows up pregnant and lactating mothers to ensure their babies are HIV negative at 18 months, Being an example, another of 3 HIV negative sons whom I passed through PMTCT right from conception to 18 months. Her husband is also HIV negative. PMTCT has worked very well in Kenya because of the mentor mothers and the positivity rate has dropped to below 2 percent. Margaret Odera is also a CHW advocate whose objective is to see a professionalized, salaried, equipped and trained community health worker. In the process, she was able to form CHW champions network (CHWCN) to unite the CHWs together for the purpose of advocacy, which has 6000 CHWs countrywide. Margaret Odera is focusing on forming a national association, having 43 out of 47 counties on board. Since the advocacy network was formed in 2020 December, Margaret Odera has seen great milestones that the government has made through advocacy. As a heroine of health 2022, Margaret Odera encourages the women to come out and advocate for themselves , because she believes #itispossible.