Dr. Doreen’s Story

When Doreen and her husband—both trained medical doctors—found themselves unemployed, it wasn’t just a personal setback. It was a wake-up call. In a country where healthcare gaps are wide and communities are underserved, they realized the solution wasn’t just to look for jobs, it was to create opportunities. In 2017, they founded Cambridge Health, not only to support their own family, but to provide high-quality care and generate employment for others.

Doreen’s story of service started long before then.

Raised in Kampala but deeply connected to her home district of Rubanda in South Western Uganda, Doreen grew up in an extended family where generosity and community were a way of life. “Our house was always full—cousins from both my mother’s and father’s side lived with us, and my parents supported them,” she shares. “I learned that you always had enough. No matter how many people we had, we always found a way to share.”

Even as a child, Doreen was drawn to helping those in need. “When I was as little as six, I had always been a bubbly, friendly child,” she says. “Even then, when I had friends in need, I would share my meals, money, and time with them. I understood that if someone said they were an orphan, it meant they lacked what I had.”

That early exposure to generosity and service shaped her calling to become a medical doctor. Today, Doreen serves as the Director of Clinical Services at Cambridge Health, overseeing doctors, nurses, and lab teams, ensuring high ethical and medical standards and that their care is safe and effective.

Through her work at Cambridge Health, Doreen saw firsthand the struggles that rural communities faced—poverty, domestic violence, school dropouts, and child labor. She longed to make a difference but felt stuck. “I had so many ideas, so many things I wanted to do, but I was held back because I kept looking at my resources and feeling constrained,” she says.

Everything changed when she joined the Abundant Leadership Institute (ALI) and learned about Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). “ALI shifted my mindset completely,” she says. “I stopped seeing what I lacked and asked, ‘What do I already have?’ That’s when I realized I could start right where I was.”

With the knowledge and confidence gained at ALI, Doreen founded the Gatangaza Community Initiative, a program serving 500 households in Kisoro District, South Western Uganda. The initiative seeks to empower communities to be prosperous and self-sufficient, focusing on economic empowerment, education, and leadership development—all built on the ABCD approach.

“We have helped form community-empowerment groups where people can come together and support each other through farming, fishing, carpentry, rotational savings, and even making clothes,” she explains. “These activities have improved household incomes, and now families can afford to keep their children in school.”

The program is also transforming education for over 400 children in upper primary school. “We’ve been giving students assessment exams, training their teachers, and partnering with other ALI members to support these schools,” Doreen says. “We provide motivational talks and encouragement because our goal is to help students pass their primary-level exams and transition into secondary school, reducing the child illiteracy rate and preventing school dropouts.”

One of the biggest challenges these students face is hunger. “Many of them walk 10 kilometers to school, only to go the entire day without a meal,” Doreen explains. “The schools don’t have the resources to provide food. This means that even the brightest students struggle to focus.”

To address this, Gatangaza has been working with communities to find sustainable solutions. They’ve introduced ABCD training to help local leaders and teachers strategize ways to strengthen their schools and create lasting impact. They hope to develop a skills-training centre for the community, expand the infrastructure of the schools in the district, and build a community library.

Doreen shares, “Before I received training at ALI, we had the idea of how to help the community but didn’t know how to put it into practice. Now, I have the skills and the network to make a real impact.”

When asked about her vision for the future, Doreen says: “I dream of a Uganda that is economically empowered and a continent whose leaders care more about their people than they do about themselves. My dream is to see a country where every person has access to affordable, quality healthcare and education.”

Looking Ahead: Scaling Kumi Mara’s Impact Kumi Mara will remain a cornerstone of Kurumbuka’s leadership development strategy. Our goal is to see every ALI graduate take ownership of the multiplication process, ensuring that the principles of Abundant Leadership reach thousands more across Africa.