Our Team

Founder and Director

Mityana Community Partnership 

Susan is the Founder and Director Mityana Community Partnership NGO.  In 2018, Susan was volunteering in Uganda working with some of the most vulnerable children and families in Mityana, Uganda and surrounding areas on issues ranging from HIV/AIDS, economic disempowerment, isolation from mental, physical, or stigmas, poor health, and a lack of education/skills. Susan fell in love with Mityana and the trust, honest conversations, and smiles she shared with so many despite their hardships and struggles.  From these connections, she identified specific struggles that were not addressed:  youth homelessness, skills for a sustainable livelihood, the taboo topic of menstruation, and a lack of clean and accessible water.  She partnered with Teddy Nal, Founder and Project Manager of Project Thrive and Charles Nsereko, Founder and Project Manager of Hope for the Best Luyirra, to reach out to the youth of Mityana, meet this need, and do so in a sustainable way.

A compassionate service professional, Susan brings 30 years' experience serving the homeless, incarcerated, substance addicted, and underprivileged in her community and has  as a mentor, educator, and community advocate.  She specialized in guiding behavioral change and counseling vulnerable individuals to become financially and emotionally independent.

A lifelong educator, she has taught early childhood education, elementary education, and served as a community service partner at the university level. 

She lives in central California where she enjoys volunteering, being active in the outdoors, and spending time with her husband and two daughters, her large family, and friends. 

Founder and Project Manager 

Project Thrive 

Teddy is an Engineer, a human rights advocate and undeniable optimist. Upon completion of her degree in Industrial Engineering and Management in 2011, she got a placement with a manufacturing factory. While doing her best in the factory, Teddy felt something was missing in her life and deeply desired to work directly with people. She chose to volunteer with the Uganda Red Cross in community outreaches and this experience helped her find her intrinsic happiness and life purpose.  

While still working with the Red Cross and volunteering with a number of local community organizations, Teddy made a bold decision to start her own community organization aimed at reaching the vulnerable and under-served communities in Mityana. In 2018, she met Susan and together they formed a legal community partnership, Project Thrive Uganda, continuing to reach vulnerable and less privileged communities in Uganda. 

In 2024, Teddy received a Doctorate Degree in Public Management and Governance  from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.  Her extensive research focused on how AI and other technologies are to impact developing countries like Uganda.  

Over the course of a decade, Teddy has deepened her networking and engagement skills to broaden her human rights advocacy in the local communities. She is extremely passionate about gender equality, education, women and youth empowerment programs. Sincerely telling, the Menstrual hygiene programs we organized with her in Mityana community are passion driven!

Teddy is a mother of two children and an active member of the Rotary Club of Mityana. She enjoys spending time with people, finding and creating holistic sustainable solutions aimed at reducing poverty levels and hunger, improving the quality of health and education, and advocating for gender equality. 

Founder and Project Director

Hope for the Best Luyiira

Charles was born and raised in a small village near Mityana located in central Uganda.  In 2015, he established a motorcycle mechanics workshop and training center in response to the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in his village where many children were orphaned and resorted to living on the streets doing child labor.  
 

With his huge heart guiding him, Charles started the community-based organization, Hope for the Best Luyiira, changing the lives of youth living on the streets; many who were orphaned by HIV, or forced from home due to economic hardship, family conflict, or abuse. Having lived on the streets as a youth himself, Charles understood the needs of homeless youth. Building a trust with time and conversation, he offered a safe and trusting environment with a focused on the training of sustainable and marketable skills. His two-year program provides practice in motorcycle repair and motorcycle parts fabrication.  Four of his past graduates have now started their own motorycle maintenance and repair garages in Mebende and Gula, Uganda and continue to give the gift Charles gave to them; offering homeless youth training in a profession that offers sustainable and marketable skills.

Charles met Susan in 2018, and a year later formed a partnership. Together, they are able to empower some of the most vulnerable youth in the Mityana community by identifying, exploring, and utilizing each youth’s full potential for their social and economic development in a sustainable manner.

 Charles is passionate about his community and cares deeply for the disabled and aging. He can be seen around town dropping off food and  coordinating necessary medical services to those in need.  He loves long rides on his motorcycle, is a connoisseur of coffee, and is always willing  to go the extra mile for others.