For the past eleven years, she has been helping cancer patients through the tough and frustrating journey that begins once they are diagnosed with cancer.

However, when the inevitable happens, her focus shifts to the next patient requiring her care and comfort. Her hands are always full with patients to care for.

She has defied many odds to become  a leading scientist in Africa. Having grown up in a remote village in Ethiopia, she has had to contend with doing odd jobs assigned to women. She had to weed, pick coffee berries, collect firewood, fetch water and the work was endless and going to school was just an afterthought.

The cultural inclinations that conspired to deny a young girl education three decades ago have come back to haunt her bid for leadership.

Aziza Abdalla sat for her Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) in 1977 at Mtongwe Primary and passed with 22 marks. The results, she says could have enabled her to join secondary school. However that never happened.

Now in her early 50s, Aziza’s bid to vie for the Mombasa County Women representative seat or even that of County Ward Representative cannot be realised after she was denied a party ticket because she could not meet the education requirements outlined in the Political Parties Act under the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

While in Kenya attending a forum convened  by the African Women Leaders Network to strategise on ways to improve reproductive health and to broaden the choices therein, Dr Hilda Tadria talked to Kenya Woman on her rewarding journey in empowering young women in Uganda.

Although she left the university many years ago, the saying that once a teacher always a teacher rings true for her. She spoke of her passion to open the eyes of these women to the possibilities of a better life.