My journey began in the country now known as Zimbabwe, where I was born and grew up during a time when black and white people lived separately under the apartheid-like regime of the Rhodesian minority government. Black people were not allowed to vote until 1980 when the country became independent. At age 19, I left Zimbabwe to attended college and lived in the United Kingdom for 16 years before emigrating to the United States in 1996.I became a naturalized US citizen in 2003 which enabling me to fully participate in the US political process. I was a volunteer for Howard Dean and cast my first presidential vote for John Kerry in 2004.

My Political Experience

Even before I was a citizen, I was active in the Democratic party experiencing my first US campaign when I volunteered on the re-election campaign of Deborah Senn's 2nd term for WA State Insurance Commissioner. Deborah was so impressed with me that she hired me and I served in her administration as a health policy analyst, working to increase healthcare access to Washingtonians. Other campaigns I have worked on include the community led fight to prevent the closure of the only African American owned adult nursing home in Washington state in 2003, Kathy Keolker's election as Mayor of Renton as well as Gary Locke and Christine Gregoire's successful gubernatorial campaigns. Since I became a US citizen, I have registered newly naturalized citizens at the 4th of July Citizenship ceremony, every year at the Seattle Center. I also serve as a PCO in my legislative district, the 37LD where I am an active member of the local Democratic Party.

My Contributions to the Obama Campaign

Like most people in this country, I first became aware of Barack Obama's potential as a presidential candidate after he delivered the now famous speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. I followed his successful election to the US senate and I made my first campaign contribution to him on January 10, 2007, the day he formed his Presidential Exploratory Committee and hosted my first ever political fundraiser, a fish fry at my house that was attended by more than 50 people in May 2007! For the last 17 months, I have contributed to the campaign in a variety of ways including:

On the February 9 caucus day, I had a journalist from a Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star, who wanted to learn about the intricacies of our caucus system shadowing me for the whole day as I drove to all the caucus locations in my district dropping campaign materials and ensuring that the precinct captains had enough supplies before returning to my own caucus location to vote. (I almost missed the registration deadline!!) As a result of the rapport I built with the media and the grassroots organization we had in place, Senator Obama was endorsed by all the major newspapers in Washington state even though most of the elected officials at the time had endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Looking to the Future

Over the last three months, as a Neighborhood Leader in my Legislative district, I have teamed up with the Neighborhood Challenge team of the state Democratic Party and have been working with local Obama volunteers, canvassing our neighborhoods and conducting new voter registrations. I intend to continue these efforts throughout the summer and while in Denver for the Democratic Convention, I intend to learn as much as I can, develop new relationships and strive to leverage these as I continue to work to elect Obama and other Democrats up and down the ticket in November.

Uniting the Democratic Party

Since Obama became the presumptive nominee on June 3rd, I have already started reaching out to the leaders of the Hillary campaign in my district to discuss ways of putting the primary campaign behind us and bring supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama together and strategize on ways to increase voter turn out in our district.

My Contributions to the Community

In addition to my political work, I am also proud of my work and reputation in the community. I currently serve as board president of the African Americans Reach and Teach Health, an organization that works to address health disparities in the African American community as well as fight to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. I am on the board of the Institutional Review Board at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and also serve on the board of Ordained Ministry for the United Methodist Church. Serving in these capacities has equipped me with negotiation skills, knowing how to run and participate in meetings using Robert's Rules of Order and to communicate with impact in a persuasive manner -all the skills I believe will be essential in anyone elected as a national delegate.

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