Irene Mkini is a Gender and Development expert with more than ten years of experience in leading and implementing a broad range of empowerment programs targeting women, youth, and adolescent girls. She is focused on raising awareness around the cultural norms and practices which are the root causes of gender-based violence against adolescent girls, children and women. She is also dedicated to empowering women and girls socially and economically. Irene is passionate about making a difference in the world. She has been building employability capacities and skills for adolescent girls and young women who dropped out from school due to pregnancy, early marriage and other challenges faced, and has helped facilitate more than 200 girls to enter into formal employment. Further, Irene is a highly experienced researcher as as well as report writer. She holds a Master’s Degree of Arts in Development Studies where she majored in Women, Gender, and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague in the Netherlands. She also holds a PhD degree from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands whereby her research was focused on growth aspirations of female entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in Tanzania. Irene’s home has been a host to E.P.I.C. Fellows for the past decade, and she continues to provide valuable advice concerning the education of the women in each village for E.P.I.C.'s Community Development Programs.