Sauti Moja-USA is a volunteer-run charity with zero overhead … meaning 100% of your donation goes directly to supporting programs in East Africa. Guided by a deep commitment to justice and human rights, our small but dedicated team works alongside our Canadian partners and local agencies to improve the lives of women, children, and pastoralist communities in Kenya and Tanzania.
Sauti Moja promotes justice for all people groups, recognizing that global and local inequality is principally due to systemic oppression rooted in self-interest and lack of respect for the rights of others.
We support the rights that are articulated in the International Bill of Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC), and International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
We recognize that transformation of both oppressors and the oppressed is necessary in order to achieve social justice and peace for all, so believe that Sauti Moja must contribute to increased understanding of the factors contributing to global injustice, as well as ways to address these.
To provide relief to those in need of the necessities of life (food, water, and health care).
To care for orphans and vulnerable children by providing shelter, education support, and general care
To develop or promote community health in developing nations by educating and instructing the public on prevention of, and curative measures for, health problems and by researching and documenting changes in the health of the community.
To provide livestock, seeds, tools, technical training and loans in order to support livelihood recovery and food security for those suffering the effects of poverty, war, famine, disease and disasters.
How We Work
Sauti Moja-USA is led by Megan and Will Cogburn, a father-daughter team whose connection to East Africa began with a mission trip and grew into a lifelong commitment.
Together, with other family members, they volunteer all of their time, self-fund their travel to the communities they serve, and bring decades of hands-on dedication to the mission.
Megan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law and affiliate faculty for the Department of Anthropology and Center for African Studies at the University of Florida.
She is the co-founder and president of Sauti Moja USA and a board member of Sauti Moja Canada.
Megan received her PhD in cultural, medical anthropology at the University of Florida in 2022 and BA from Wheaton College in 2010 with a focus in development studies, anthropology, and pre-medicine. To date, her research and teaching span global health, gender, and medicine, with a regional focus on Tanzania.
For the last 17 years, Megan has been active in international development and community health-focused research and programs in rural Tanzania. As an undergraduate student at Wheaton College, she completed a six-month internship with the Longido Community Integrated Program in Longido in 2009. During that time, she developed and piloted a sexual and reproductive health education program for Maasai girls in secondary school.
Before co-founding Sauti Moja USA in 2012, Megan worked as a program manager for Sauti Moja Canada. She lived in Longido and worked closely with Sauti Moja Tanzania in coordinating their health, education, and livelihood programs.
Since 2016, she has conducted academic research on global maternal health policies and practices in Tanzania, including a position as an ethnographer for the Harvard Kennedy School Transparency for Development Project in central Tanzania. There she explored the effects of a transparency and accountability intervention on maternal and neonatal health outcomes, as well as the experiences and roles of traditional birth attendants in community development.
Megan has extensive experience conducting ethnography in hospitals and communities across Tanzania. As a postdoctoral researcher, Megan conducted a collaborative ethnography exploring pain and palliative care practices in hospitals in Dar es Salaam and Iringa, Tanzania, and completed a short course training in palliative care in Dar in 2024.
She has published peer-review scholarly journal articles in Health Policy & Planning, Social Science & Medicine, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Medical Anthropology. She is continuing to develop an active research agenda on global health and environmental justice, palliative care practices, maternal and child health, and the cross-cultural and gendered meanings of pain.
Megan also serves as one of the co-directors of the University of Florida’s International Ethnography Lab and is chair of the Council of Anthropology and Reproduction.
Will has led and participated in many short-term medical relief and medical education trips to Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Haiti, and Central America.
He visited Longido, Tanzania for the first time when Megan was there for 6 months during her senior year in college. During this time, he was introduced to the excellent community-based work being done by Sauti Moja in the Maasai communities.
He has also visited the Sauti Moja projects in Marsibit, Kenya.
Sauti Moja USA empowers grassroots organizations by collaborating with local leaders to achieve positive change in their communities.
Through our partnership with Sauti Moja-Canada, the organizations that we support in Kenya and Tanzania were founded by individuals we’ve known and worked with for many years. They are inspiring visionaries and highly-competent leaders, who are deeply committed to serving their home communities and dedicated to modeling excellence.
We count ourselves privileged to work alongside Sauti Moja-Canada to provide financial, technical and management support, as needed. And, a great source of our joy is being able to introduce our donor partners to our great program partners.
At Sauti Moja-USA we believe in helping support and strengthen existing infrastructures, organizations, and projects. All our funds raised go directly to supporting Sauti Moja-Canada’s programs in Kenya and Tanzania.
All the staff in these two organizations are from the local communities and run on-the-ground programs with management support from Sauti Moja-Canada. Through this unique global partnership, Sauti Moja–USA serves as an accompaniment to the two decades of relationship building and long-term community development that leads to equitable and healthy communities.
Sauti Moja Tanzania is a national non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Longido, Tanzania. SMTZ focuses on communities within Longido District, which is predominantly of Maasai ethnicity.
Programming includes preschool education, family and community health, including sexual and reproductive health in schools, and livestock loans to vulnerable moms. Each year, SMTZ hosts university students from North America and Europe to fulfill their academic requirements.
Current emphasis is on scaling up health & livelihoods programming.
Rural Education and Training Organization is a Community-Based Organization (CBO) based in Logologo, Kenya. We have collaborated with these community leaders to implement livestock, health and vulnerable youth projects, beginning in 2008.
Currently, RETO focuses on literacy of young mothers, family and community health, peacemaking, and livestock loans. Our Vulnerable Youth program supports education for child mothers and deaf children, as well as conducts sexual and reproductive health training in schools.
Soon, children who were unable to attend school due to family responsibilities will be able to attend shepherd school.
When you donate to SM-USA, you become a part of this change and story. Know that 100% of your monetary donation goes directly to supporting programs in East Africa. At SM-USA, we volunteer all our time and use our own funds to visit projects and local partners. We are in this partnership with confidence and invite you to join us by providing your financial support that improves the lives and well-being of women and children in East Africa.
