Helen Habteslasie Keleta
Tribute
Between saving lives two years after relocating to Uganda as an Eritrean refugee and establishing the East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Center, Helen Keleta has checked temperatures, held hands and kissed scraped knees for her four children. While medical journals may note her professional accomplishments, we celebrate the healing that happens when she combs her children's hair, the diagnosis of childhood worries that never appear on any chart, and the loving prescriptions written only in a mother's touch.
Profile
Helen Habteslasie Keleta is the founder and CEO of East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Center, established in January 2018 in Kampala, Uganda. Originally from Eritrea, Helen relocated to Uganda in 2016 as a refugee. Noticing the challenges fellow refugees faced in accessing healthcare due to language barriers and financial constraints, she was inspired to establish a medical center that would provide affordable and accessible healthcare services. The center started with a five-bed capacity and has since expanded to 25 beds, with two additional branches in different areas to better serve the refugee community and reduce transportation costs. Before moving to Uganda, Helen worked as an engineer in various family construction companies. Her transition into the healthcare sector was driven by a desire to address the pressing healthcare needs of refugees in her community. Her vision for East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Center is to be the ‘Provider of Choice’ in delivering safe, quality, and affordable healthcare services in East Africa. The mission of the center is to provide respectful, comprehensive, trusted, compassionate, and integrated healthcare services that exceed customer expectations. Her leadership and impact have been recognized internationally; notably, she was among the 50 outstanding African entrepreneurs shortlisted by the Jack Ma Foundation’s Africa’s Business Heroes initiative, which annually awards grant funding to exceptional entrepreneurs across the continent. Helen is a mother of four, balancing her entrepreneurial endeavors with her family responsibilities.