One By One co-founders, Heidi Breeze-Harris and Katya Matanovic

Heidi Breeze-Harris has an academic background in Asian Studies and Anthropology. She has studied, lived and worked in Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal. She is a seasoned project manager, artist, photographer and community activist. Her project management work includes: marketing, writing, book design, commercial photo shoots, publishing (for Dale Chihuly), installation design, community space design and building, and community meeting facilitation. In 2002 Heidi was granted a fellowship with the Japan U.S. Community Education and Exchange program to study the government and non-profit response to the disastrous 1995 earthquake in Kobe. Now Heidi cares for her 15-month-old son Coleman and runs One By One alongside her co-founder, Katya.

“As it turned out, I had an obstructed labor with my son – a dramatic delivery resulting in a C-section, and then a second surgery for internal bleeding,” Heidi says. “I was enthusiastic about helping to end fistula before this happened to me, but afterwards the cause was even more real for me because I had my own experience of the pain of this kind of labor – and the suffering, isolation and loss these women experience in the aftermath is overwhelming for me to imagine.”

Katya Matanovic has spent the last nine years working in community development and women’s leadership. She is an accomplished program manager and practiced designer, artist and activist. Her experience in the non-profit sector includes curriculum development, special project management, marketing and strategic planning. Most recently, Katya developed and directed member services for a community foundation, and is currently managing the development of a national curriculum for low-income parents. Now Katya works at Loving Couples, Loving Children and runs One By One with her co-founder, Heidi.

Of her reasons for starting One By One, she says “No woman should have to live with this condition, not with the capacity we have to prevent and cure it. $300 is so little to ask to transform a woman’s life.”

Heidi and Katya started One By One after learning of the devastating condition of obstetric fistula in 2004. They have been friends for over eight years and worked together on a variety of projects before starting One By One. Each finds the partnership wildly successful – not only do their skills complement each other, but they have loads of fun together.