Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka (born 8 January 1970) is a Ugandan veterinarian and founder of Conservation Through Public Health, an organisation dedicated to the coexistence of endangered mountain gorillas, other wildlife, humans, and livestock in Africa. Kalema-Zikusoka was Uganda's first wildlife veterinary officer and was the star of the BBC documentary, Gladys the African Vet.In 2009 she won the Whitley Gold Award for her conservation work. In December 2021 she was proclaimed a United Nations Environment Programme's Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation for her work with the One Health initiative.

Quotes

• Follow your dreams and the rest will follow. Being a social entrepreneur is often a journey of hills and valleys, and very fulfilling if you always keep your goals in sight.[1]

• If you make the community feel that you care about them, then there’s less need to fight them.[2]

• Disease transmission goes in both directions.[3]

• We have already disrupted the natural way of life.[4]

• The wildlife authority was established in an era of fences and fines in the ’50s.[5]

• People poach because they’re hungry, they have no other alternative.[6]

• I am glad that the One Health approach is being seen as a viable approach to conservation, that’s great.[7]

• I would like to expand our impact to other countries in Africa where gorillas are found and other parts of Uganda where gorillas are not found, working with local stakeholders. Something else I feel strongly about is to help increase the number of women leaders in conservation through my role on the leadership council of Women for the Environment – Africa, and leaders of color in conservation in my role as the Vice President of the African Primatological Society that is building African leadership in primate research and conservation.

I am currently writing a book about my experiences in conservation and leadership journey with gorillas and other wildlife over the past 30 years, which I hope to get published next year. It’s something I have been wanting to do for many years and excited that it is finally happening. I have found a great literary agent, Naz Ahsun, who is very supportive. . When asked what are ambitions in life are.

• It is important to choose a career based on something you truly care about because when the going gets tough, what keeps you going is your passion and purpose. I have found that you will never be able to please everyone all of the time, especially if you want to make a difference and change the world. When you work alone you go fast, when you work with others you go far; I have learnt the importance of teamwork, having a motivated team, and building partnerships with external stakeholders. As a founder of an NGO and social enterprise, I have also learnt to place values ahead of talent when hiring people. On a personal note, I have learnt how important it is to be an authentic leader, and strive to develop a healthy work/life balance. when asked what she wish to know before her career.

• I see myself stepping down from being the CEO of our NGO and social enterprise and devoting more of my time on the Board, spending more time growing as a leader and mentoring my team, and others in my sector. I also see myself spending more time advocating for our approach to a wider audience in Africa and the rest of the world. I am humbled to be a finalist of the 2020 Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize because of our One Health approach to Conservation. . When she was asked "where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?"

• Veterinary training enables you to impact many sectors if you would like to take up these amazing opportunities. It has been a truly interesting and rewarding journey for me to be able to make a difference in conservation, public health, tourism, and agriculture sectors through my training as a veterinarian. . Her advice to budding vets.

• Enjoy parenthood, don’t try to be a perfect parent, spend as much time as possible with your children because they change so fast during the first few years and two decades of their life, and you don’t want to miss many of those moments in helping to shape their values. My eldest son recognised his first elephant at the age of two, in the national park, not in a storybook. Let them follow their passion and be who they want to be and encourage them to be authentic, build their leadership qualities, and fulfill their potential in life. I am truly indebted to my mother, who on top of being a hands-on mother and grandmother, encouraged me to follow my dream to pursue a career with animals because she realised that from an early age, I hated to see them suffering, and even when being a Vet in Uganda was not a profession that paid well, and I am truly indebted to her for that. . Her advice to parents.

• Finally, happiness is…

Being true to yourself and leaving the world better than you found it…. .