#TFAAspotlight: Felix Richard Manyogote is delivering safe health to women in Tanzania

Felix Richard Manyogote is the Medical Doctor at Women Deliver and Medical director at Youth Against Barriers, with a passion for providing free door-to-door antenatal service and advocacy on male involvement in maternal health.

He was born and raised in Tanzania where he received his Doctor of Medicine degree at the Catholic University of Health and Allied Science.

As a Program Manager at the Mama Afya Initiative, Felix is responsible for organising free health screening for rural women and conducting workshops in rural schools on comprehensive reproductive health. Through his work, he won a 2017 United Nations (UN) Global Goals Award in the Leave No One Behind category.

To Felix, “meaningful youth engagement” means putting youth at the center of driving change and development.

What more do we know about Felix?

1. He is the 2019 Winner 120under40 by the New Generation of family planning leaders.
2. He received the UN Global Goals Awards by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation/UNICEF in 2017.
3. Felix is the Winner, The Future Awards Africa, prize in community action in 2015.
4. The Medical Doctor received the Tanzania Young professional award by the proactive Employment Solution in 2015.
5. Dr. Felix Manyogote has been spearheading advocacy campaign to amplify the voices of young women in an effort to hold the government of Tanzania accountable to its youth related FP2020 commitment and has also has been advocating for female condoms. This happened after he lost his aunt in 2013 on child birth.

Prior to being named the winner of the 120under40 award, he talked about using the platform to get the requisite knowledge and skills to drive family planning forward and improvement of maternal health in Tanzania.

He once said, “I was born and raised in a rural setting where rates of unintended pregnancy, maternal mortality, unsafe abortions and HIV infection among women are unacceptably high. Many women have insufficient information about sexual and reproductive health education and are powerless to protect themselves from HIV/STI infections and unintended pregnancies. Thus the need for effective options to protect women’s health and future fertility as a vital component of family planning sparked my passion.”

Felix is the future!