As a little girl growing up in Nairobi, Emelda greatly admired nurses. Their crisp uniforms with matching caps captured her childhood imagination. But what she liked even more was the way they took care of each patient. “I’m a caring person and that aspect really drew me to the profession. After high school, proceeding to nursing school felt like a natural choice for me.”

In 1993, she joined Muhimbili School of Nursing to pursue a diploma in nursing. After completing the course in 1997, she worked as a nurse for a decade before joining AKU-SONAM in 2007 where she graduated with a BScN in 2010.

A jovial woman, Emelda is now the Head of Nursing at Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCRBT). The organisation works to prevent disability, provides affordable medical and rehabilitative services and aids empowerment of people with disabilities and their families. It also seeks to prevent disability through early identification by strengthening maternal and newborn health in Dar-es-Salaam.

“At CCRBT, my main responsibility is supervising nurses,” Emelda explains. “However, mine isn’t direct supervision for the nurses; there’s a chain of other leaders under me who have direct access to the nurses. I make sure that the nurses adhere to the standards and have the right skills and knowledge to deliver care to patients. I mentor nurses, provide capacity-building services and help with training.”

She currently has over one hundred nurses under her mandate. “My nursing team is made up of different cadres. Eight of them are in managerial roles where they directly supervise the operational and clinical bedside nurses,” Emelda says.

Additionally, Emelda handles the financial responsibilities of her division. “I have to develop the annual budget for the nursing team and nursing activities. Our hospital is donordependent, so my efforts help the department dealing with donors to know what we need and make the proper provisions,” she explains.

Emelda continues to use the scientific problemsolving method, a skill she developed while at AKU-SONAM. “With this skill, I don’t jump to conclusions regarding any problem I’m dealing with. I analyse the root cause and make a decision that is sound. I’m committed to learning new skills every day. For instance, I didn’t know much about accounting and finance before, but every day I make sure I learn something new about it. In my role, I have to consider costs of different things, so developing accounting skills is necessary. When I was at AKU-SONAM, one of the things I enjoyed was the community work we did when we went for field studies. That opened my eyes to the needs of the communities we would be serving,” she says.

As a leader, she treasured the leadership management module. “It helped me become more confident and assertive,” she explains. She also learnt the importance of standard operating procedures. “Properly documented standard procedures provide guidelines, make work easier for everyone and prevent double standards.”

To other nurses, she has this to say, “As long as you choose this profession, be at your highest performance and remain totally motivated despite difficult days. Do it with your heart. Remember, nursing is a profession, it’s not just a supporting role.”