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Isabella Mukankusi

2022 Fellow

VV VISIONARIES

Isabella Mukankusi Headshot
Uganda

Isabella Mukankusi is the co-founder of Wak Mental HealthDefenders (WMHD), a nonprofit organization that promotes and protects women and children’s rights giving them skills and an opportunity to thrive through legal empowerment, capacity building, formation of strategic partnerships, community groups, and social enterprise innovations, where no one is left behind.So far, WHMD has created one strong community outreach program for persons living with mental illness in Uganda and is committed to providing opportunities to change life paths.Prior to this, Mukankusi worked at Justice Defenders, where she taught incarcerated individuals and prison officers studying a University of London distance learning law degree to help facilitate legal processes. Mukankusi led the Legal Services team to build prison-based legal aid clinics, where trained paralegals and law students provided legal services for themselves and others and implemented gender mainstreaming policies in all the programs. Mukankusi holds a Bachelor of Laws Honors Degree from London Metropolitan University, UK. She recently completed the 2021/2022 Human Rights Advocates Program fellowship at Institute for Study ofHuman Rights, Columbia University in the City of New York. She serves as a Board Member for My StoryInitiative, a disability rights nonprofit and is involved in advocating for sexual and reproductive rights of girls with psychosocial disabilities in Uganda.