Africa Elevate Program
A Collaborative Approach That Elevates Local Leaders
Designed in partnership with Kenyan cancer advocates, A Fresh Chapter (AFC) is building a scalable, sustainable, evidence-informed model focused on:
- Healing the emotional scars of cancer.
- Empowering African survivors and caregivers to mobilize as advocacy leaders.
- Strengthening global health equity by equipping people with the tools they need to redefine their lives, along with the confidence to share their cancer stories, which is helping to reduce stigma and promote early detection and screening.
Our programs are led by local AFC-trained facilitators who have been personally impacted by cancer.
Current programs include:
- The Ignite Experience: A virtual 10-week skills-based mental health support intervention for cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers.
- Mizizi Workshops: Half-day in-person interactive workshops that bring AFC’s skills and concepts aimed at addressing the emotional aspects of cancer to grassroots communities across Kenya.
- AFC Leaders: This 6-week foundational leadership and professional development program addresses the human side of leadership through offering skills to build emotional intelligence, compassionate leadership, inclusion, and resilience.
- Empower Workshops: 1-2 hour virtual workshops that offer new tools, resources, and perspectives to help balance both cancer and life.
- Elevate Fellowship: An immersive, cross-cultural leadership and advocacy program that aims to build AFC’s program capacity in Kenya by investing in and elevating local leaders.
In addition to our work in Kenya, AFC plans to scale this model to additional Sub-Saharan countries before 2026, starting with South Africa and Tanzania.
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Look at me in 2020, and look at me now -- I’m a changed person. Many people from my local support group have joined AFC because they can see the changes in me. And now, we are reaching the broader Kenya community. We want them to feel this impact, to heal emotionally. My journey with AFC is the greatest thing that happened to me post-cancer. Because I have now a purpose, and I have the tools to reach my purpose, to change the lives of many cancer survivors in my community. — Tony Simiyu, Nairobi, Kenya |
The Need
- During the past 30 years, cancer incidence rates in Sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to have doubled.
- The psychosocial/emotional challenges of cancer dramatically affect a patient’s quality of life.
- These challenges are often more dramatic in low and middle-income African countries, where cancer has over time been associated with no cure.
- In addition to anxiety and fear of death, many cancer patients in Africa deal with stigma and strained family relationships.
There is a clear need to help African patients, survivors, caregivers, and advocates gain tools to cope with uncertainty, develop resilience, and build concrete skills to navigate the challenges of a cancer experience.
Elevate Fellowship: An Innovative Cross-Cultural Leadership Program
In 2019, A Fresh Chapter launched our first Elevate Fellowship in Kenya. This immersive, cross-cultural, peer-to-peer experience offers new perspectives, personal and professional growth opportunities, and the chance to participate in local AFC programming to our fellows. Created with support from our industry partner Eli Lilly and Company, this Fellowship Program set the stage for the work we are doing today in Kenya. Our collaborative model invests in and elevates our local partners to ensure we meet local needs. Since then, we’ve been grateful to also partner with Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer.
Each year, AFC brings together employees of AFC’s partner organizations with Kenyan and U.S.-based cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and advocates. All selected participants work in cross-cultural teams on vital projects aimed at advancing AFC’s important work in Africa.
2025 Elevate Project Overview
This year’s Elevate Projects will be focused on expanding access to AFC’s Mizizi workshops.
Mizizi workshops are interactive half-day workshops that bring AFC’s tools and concepts to underserved communities at a grassroots level. Workshops include a range of themes to offer people support in addressing the emotional aspects of cancer. These workshops are led by a diverse group of Kenyan AFC Facilitators who have been personally impacted by cancer, are alumni of AFC’s programs, receiving ongoing training, and are able to translate these concepts into local languages. Since its launch in 2022, AFC has delivered 42 Mizizis across Kenya, reaching a total of 2,952 attendees and nearly doubling the average attendance per workshop from 47 to 87 individuals impacted by cancer.
In 2025, AFC will continue to expand access to Mizizi in Kenya while also building the infrastructure to expand Mizizi to other countries across Africa. AFC’s goal is to launch the first Mizizi in South Africa in 2026. AFC has identified two elements critical to this expansion:
- Expanding and strengthening AFC’s Peer Facilitator training program, Amplify, to include dedicated curriculum and hands-on facilitation opportunities for Mizizi workshops. This is part of a broader organizational project AFC is undertaking, which also includes a vision for performance evaluation processes, benchmarks to move between facilitation levels, continuing education opportunities, and systems to recruit and retain facilitators.
- Developing Mizizi in a Box, a comprehensive Mizizi Manual that will serve as a guide for new Mizizi teams in Kenya and provide a blueprint for launching Mizizi in South Africa (and beyond). This resource will play a key role in expanding the program’s reach across Africa while supporting effective implementation and community engagement.
We are working collectively to not only build AFC’s program capacity in Kenya, but also explore how we can bring these transformational programs to other countries in Africa.
Why Partner Kenyan & U.S. Advocates?
Cross-cultural connections have been at the heart of AFC since our pilot Odyssey Program in 2013. Connecting people impacted by cancer across diverse cultures and backgrounds has empowered all involved to see their lives, their cancer stories, and the world from a different perspective, creating an enduring ripple impact across the globe.
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In 2024, AFC intends to:
- Increase access to our virtual 10-week Africa Ignite Experience, with a goal of serving 50 Africans impacted by cancer.
- Expand our Mizizi workshop library and roll out 18 onsite workshops across Kenya, with a goal of serving 1,000+ Kenyan patients, survivors, and caregivers.
- Broaden access to the AFC Leaders program and provide foundational leadership skills to 40 African cancer advocates.
Cancer is a monster that scars you from within. A Fresh Chapter helped me penetrate my deepest emotions that I buried in 2016. Emotional trauma transformed into strength. AFC uniquely focuses on what happens after cancer, and recognizing healing is a process. It is finding ways to integrate what I have been through, with who I am, both despite and because of it. A Fresh Chapter has planted a seed of knowledge in me, and I will water this seed of knowledge to its full growth and spread it to all countries and provinces in Africa. — Sheldene Masondo, Johannesburg, South Africa |
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Join Our Mission to Empower African Cancer Survivors and Caregivers to Become Leaders
If you are interested in partnering with A Fresh Chapter, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Terri Wingham at terri@afreshchapter.com.
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