Leadership
Leadership
The person who chose to begin, and who still sets the standard for how this work is done.
Asiimwe Phiona
Founder and Executive Director
In May 2024, Phiona looked at the silence surrounding gender-based violence and the quiet struggles of refugees and single parents in Uganda, and decided the silence had lasted long enough.
She did not wait for perfect conditions or large funding. She started with conviction, a small group of committed young professionals, and a refusal to accept that vulnerability should equal invisibility.
Under her leadership, PhiphyMak has grown into an organisation that combines practical skills training, medical outreach, psychosocial care, and long-term accompaniment. The work is steady and relational. Survivors are not treated as cases. They are people whose dignity and confidence can be restored.
Phiona leads with both firmness and tenderness. She has shaped a culture where every person is given the space and support to stand again.
This organisation exists because she chose to begin.
Our team
The people who carry the work.
PhiphyMak is carried by a small team of young Ugandan professionals who chose this work rather than fell into it. Counsellors, social workers, trainers and medical volunteers, most of whom have been with the organisation since it began in May 2024.
They are the ones who sit with a survivor through the first difficult conversation, who load the supplies and set up the banner at a refugee settlement outreach, who stay with a parent or guardian through the months it takes for a new skill to turn into an income. The work is patient and largely unseen, and it is done the same way whether anyone is watching or not.
Between them they hold every part of what the organisation does: skills training, medical outreach, literacy and education, psychosocial care, and the long accompaniment that follows. Small in number, consistent in practice, and clear about why they are here.
Working together
Partnerships begin with a conversation.
If you would like to speak with Phiona directly about the work, about partnership, or about how to help, you are welcome to write or call.