Elsie is a Tanzanian freelance consultant. She writes a weekly column for the regional East African newspaper and she is currently Chair of the Board of Soma Readership for Learning, a small local feminist NGO. In the past couple of years, she has supported auto/biography projects for prominent, she has been a rapporteur for the Aspen Institute Africa Congressional Program, and participated in the Afrobarometer Tanzania fine-tuning workshop amongst other assignments. Prior to this, Elsie has attended the annual Deutsche Welle Conference, in Germany, and the Open Society of South Africa Conference, in South Africa, as a blogger and live-tweeter. She was also part of a team that researched and published an innovative paper on how to engage with and influence government as civil society with the Public Services Accountability Monitor (PSAM), Housed at Rhodes University. Prior to freelancing, Elsie worked as a media analyst at Serengeti Advisers Ltd, and for the Nation Media Group.