MODESTA JOSEPH

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TANZANIA, 21

Project: Our Voice Against Harassment (OVAH)
Focus Area: Sexual Health and Rights Advocacy

Modesta is the founder of Our Voices Against Harassment (OVAH) – an organization with the mission to ensure every child in Tanzania can report harassment they experience, so justice can take place. In 2015, Modesta started Our Voices Against Harassment, then known as Our Cries, to protect students from harassment in the transportation sector. OVAH has since expanded to tackle the prominent issues of sexual abuse and harassment that many girls and young women face daily. Mwajuma Simama is OVAH’s animation series and platform that educates Tanzanian society and leads conversations about sexual abuse. OVAH also provides a web-based system where girls and young women who experience sexual harassment can speak out about these incidents.

In 2015, Modesta was selected as one of Tanzania’s delegates to attend the global prestigious startup and tech event SLUSH in Finland. In 2017, she was a part of the Tanzanian Robotics Team, and went on to represent Tanzania in the very first Robotics Challenge in Washington D.C. She has been recognized as a 2017 We Are Family Foundation Global Teen Leader and 2018 Africa Young Leader Fellow. In 2018, Modesta attended a LaunchX Summer Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she co-founded a startup called Notitia to make training data more accessible.

Modesta is currently working at Apps and Girls as an IT Administrator and Alumni Relations Officer. She is an alumnus from the African Leadership Academy and will start her undergraduate studies at African Leadership University in January 2021. Modesta is passionate about driving social change through technology and will continue empowering other young people to do the same.

More: www.ovah.ourcries.org

“Me protecting my rights of not being humiliated does not have anything to do with where I’ve been or where I’ve gone in the world but just me being human.”