With passion and commitment, she believes that the challenges facing preterm infants could be put to an end in a few years
Doris Mollel is a Founder and Executive Director of Doris Mollel Foundation (DMF). A non-profit organisation established in February 2015 to promote public awareness about prematurity. Being a 900 gramme prematurely born and seen some premature babies fuelled her desire to give these beautiful babies a chance to live.
In 2014, she participated in the beauty pageant and she was the Miss Singida.
She holds of a Bachelor’s Degree in Politics and Management of Social Development from Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy College, a Postgraduate in Management of Foreign Relations from the Centre of Foreign Relations, Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management from Mzumbe University, UN Women Empower Global Champion for change, a UNFPA and Europe Aid Influencer in Tanzania Fighting against Female Genital Mutilation and a Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) alumni.
She constantly seeks opportunities to align resources to reduce Tanzania’s burden of preterm birth and its negative impact on health, communities, and economies. Many health institutions in Tanzania and along the East Africa region aim for the horizon of 2030. However, with passion and commitment, she believes that the challenges facing preterm infants could be put to an end in a few years.
DFM is among the beneficiaries of Women Fund Trust. Talking about the WFT support she says, WFT supported them technically and finance their activities. The Tanzania’s first and only women’s rights fund, which overall goal is to contribute towards women’s rights and empowerment, and to women’s and feminist movement building through implementing a functional and empowering funding mechanism for women in Tanzania.
From the technical area they provided critical information to build and strengthen the momentum of DMF most proud initiative called the Prematurity Agenda of which WFT has financed two projects tied to Prematurity Agenda.
“I would say Women Fund came in at the right time when we urgently needed financial support and the creation of women’s movement building that will see the key priority areas of the Prematurity Agenda achieved long before the horizon of 2025,” says Mollel.
She says, the key priority areas of the Prematurity Agenda are, extension of parental leave law to accommodate parents with premature babies and incorporation of preterm babies’ medical bills in the maternity packages of all health insurances.
Incorporation of prematurity knowledge in science and biology syllabuses for primary and secondary levels, respectively, she adds.
Commenting on the challenges she goes through in running the foundation she says, at the DM they are visionary and creatively led, and that implies they are consistently finding ways to create friendly environments for premature babies in the country.
“Two of the biggest challenges we face are adequate funds to meet our foundational goals of improving NICU care and reducing the knowledge gap in the community that is still prevalent,” she says.
Being asked on her opinion what stops women from holding top positions of leadership roles she says, she believes times have changed and more women are ready to take and hold top leadership positions. However, one of the challenges that many of them still have is not being able to take risks and make bold moves.
She says, staying at the top one needs rigid muscles, which most women are scared of due to stale narratives that our communities still hold to date.
Talking about his leadership style, she says she is a mixture of critical listening, observing, creativity-oriented, and taking paths that no one has ever taken. She would describe her leadership style as leading by example, facilitating communication, delegating, and making my team deliver results greater than the sum of its parts.
She says, taking part in the beauty pageant opened doors for her. The Miss Tanzania platform can be an effective tool for you to grow if you know how to use it. However, for one to grow and see it bear fruits, it will need patience, hard work, and being resilient to what you believe in.
“It took me seven years to be where I am now, and I have not yet achieved a substantial percentage of what I want to see the Doris Mollel Foundation complete,’’ she says.
Her advice to the government and other development stakeholders in the health sector, specifically on premature babies she says, she is very thankful to the government for they have been supportive of DMF initiatives.
However, she longing to see the three key priority areas of the prematurity agenda, especially, the amendment of the parental leave law becomes an actual thing.