Barbara Njovo

As a female in the Special Olympics Africa regional athlete leader council, Barbara encourages female athletes to take more meaningful roles and to be more visible in the Special Olympics organization. “I would like to break barriers of male dominance in the sports industry by encouraging female athletes to become women in Sports Leadership, through coaching”. She was selected by fellow athletes to be the regional health liaison officer; her role is to update the Regional Council on the challenges and successes the programs are having in the health sector and the effectiveness of the health grants. In addition to being an athlete leader within Special Olympics, she is a short distance runner, and locally holds 8 gold medals. In 2019 she competed in the World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi and won 2 medals, 1 Silver and 1 bronze then in the Pan Africa Games held in Egypt she won 2 Gold medals.

She is a qualified nurse aide; and has gone through sports management courses and would like to continue advancing herself. She was recently trained as a Health Messenger; in her role she was invited to attend the World Health Summit in Berlin and spoke on positive practices in health systems in Zimbabwe and expressed the importance of self advocacy.