Kaltuma Vanesa Ahmed is 26 years old and was born in Torit, Eastern Equatoria State, South Sudan. Kaltuma earned a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Nkumba University in Entebbe-Uganda and has two years of experience in nonprofit organizations. While working as an assistant with the Makulu Fund for Children in Uganda for a year, identifying and registering these children to the organization under the supervision of her senior manager, she helped to improve the welfare of children living with HIV/AIDS and those whose parents died from HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Previously, Kaltuma worked with Radio Bilal volunteering in a project raising funds for the people who were destroyed in landslide in Bududa in Uganda for 6 months, sensitizing people on the impact and showing how these people can be helped. Currently, she is working as a reporter and presenter at Voice of Eastern Equatoria radio. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination, communication skills, and her love for media presentation. Kaltuma is interested in women/gender issues as well as other topics that need to be communicated to the public.

Host Organization: Voice of America

Role at Host Organization: “Kaltuma will serve with VOA staff to identify and research news and feature stories in Sudan and South Sudan that are of interest to the target audience, and will be called upon to conduct interviews. Kaltuma will produce radio reports for international broadcast and digital content for the voanews.com/southsudan website. In addition, she will support the editorial process of planning daily news coverage.