Name: Michael Bennish
Position: Executive Director
How to Contact Me:
Mtubatuba office phone: 27 (0)35 550-2000
Office fax: 27 (0)035 550-2001
Mobile (SA): +27 082 906 6354
Mobile (USA): +1 617 642 7449
Email: michael@mpilonhle.org
As Executive Director, I am responsible for the overall success of Mpilonhle. This includes obtaining funding for our program, helping design and carry out the program, meeting with the community, and supervising staff that report to me.
With the superb staff we have on board at Mpilonhle sometimes I think there is no need for me at all!
Something about me
Along with colleagues who shared my concern about the HIV pandemic and how it affects youth, we founded Mpilonhle in 2006, and started our first activities in September of 2007. I have lived in the Mtubatuba area of northern KwaZulu-Natal, serving for 8 years, first coming to the area in January 2000 to be the founding Director of the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies
After two three-year terms of Director, and recognizing the great need in the area, I stayed on to help found Mpilonhle, which has as its mission to improve the health and social development of youth in the Umkhanyakude District.
I am trained as a physician with specialty training in Pediatrics and sub-specialty training in infectious diseases. I have worked in some of the most under-privileged areas of the world, including the South Side of Chicago, Bangladesh, and now rural South Africa.
On a more personal note, my wife Marie-Christine and I enjoy the little free time we have together to read (African history for me), watch vintage movies on CDs, and Skype our children and family around the world.