Senior Staff
ABCs’ Executive Director Kathy Tate-Bradish holds a degree in German secondary education from the University of Illinois, and has taught middle school English in Austria and middle and high school German in Illinois and at the American School in London. She also holds a law degree from Northwestern University, and passed the bar in 1981.
Kathy has been volunteering in Kenya since 2004, and based on requests from women’s groups and high school students, began teaching sex education with her friend Magdaline Wangeci.
In 2007 Rose Ayuma Moon, founder of Vumilia, asked her to train staff and community members to teach the HIV prevention and sex education curriculum she was developing. With editing and translation help from her friend Phylis Nasubo Magina who was living in the US at the time, she ran her first two multi-day trainings in 2008, showing rural Kenyans how to teach HIV prevention and sex education in schools and churches, at chief’s barazas, and to women’s groups, HIV support groups, and many other organizations. She has trained and taught in Kenya once or twice a year since then, with the curriculum now known as The ABCs of Sex Education.
ABCs’ Managing Director Phylis Nasubo Magina is a teacher by profession, having finished her B.Ed Arts at Kenyatta University. She taught in Kenyan secondary schools for eleven years before going to the USA in 2001. While in America, she did her masters degree in Early Childhood and Special Education at Northeastern Illinois University (M. Arts ECD/SPED).
While living in the US Phylis translated training materials into Swahili for Kathy, and helped develop culturally appropriate role plays and other activities. She came back to Kenya in 2009 and was a Deputy Head teacher at an elementary school in Nairobi until December 2013. During that time she also attended an HIV prevention and sex education training course that Kathy ran, and has subsequently co-taught many lessons with her.
Phylis took over as Managing Director of the ABCs of Sex Education in January 2014.
ABCs’ Sanitary Pad Director Magdaline Wangeci has been covered in Kenya’s Standard Digital Newsfor her reusable sanitary pad trainings. Magdaline has been teaching with the ABCs as a sex educator since the first official training in 2008, and started doing similar work in 2005. Magdaline is also a leader of HESHA, the ABCs’ Embaringo Team. Watch a video about Magdaline’s work and download reusable sanitary pad instructions here.
ABCs' Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Beatrice Wambugu has a Master’s degree in M&E from the University of Nairobi. She comes from Central Kenya where she completed secondary school before joining the University of Nairobi for bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She has extensive knowledge and experience in strategy and project management as well as data management and analysis.
She currently works as an M&E Officer for the ABCs of Sex Education. She designs M&E tools, monitors progress in project implementation, and evaluates impact to inform decisions. She has completed several research papers including one on challenges facing community water supplies, and an assessment of the sexual and reproductive needs of adolescents in secondary schools.
She loves working for and with communities while also learning new things including other languages. While not in the office, she loves watching and looking after livestock.