�鶹Լ�� Media Action Feed

Kenya flooding: why trusted media is essential in a changing climate

2020-06-16T11:04:13+00:00

As the world grapples with COVID-19, a small rural community in Turkana County, Kenya recently faced another crisis: flash flooding. Local weather producer and �鶹Լ�� Media Action mentee, Vivian Achwa, shares her experience of meeting affected communities and seeing first-hand how the climate crisis continues even in the midst of a pandemic.

People in Kanukurudio village assemble around a water pump destroyed by flash flooding

Nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced when I travelled to Kanukurudio, a small village in rural Kenya hit by flash flooding last month. Though I’d seen photos on WhatsApp of the havoc caused, it was only upon speaking to those affected that I truly understood its impacts.

I’m the producer at Radio Maata for a weather and climate programme called Nee Nikosi (‘Our �鶹Լ��’), broadcasting to pastoralists and farmers across the county. Every Wednesday evening, as they return from tending to their land and livestock, I share practical weather information about issues ranging from drought to the current locust invasion that is threatening our food supply.

Setting off before dawn, it took me four hours to reach Kanukurudio from our base in Lodwar. I had hired a four-wheel drive to navigate the rough terrain – crossing flooded rivers and dykes along the way.

Flash flooding caused havoc in several areas of Turkana county

When I arrived, the sense of grief in the community was palpable. There were animal carcasses everywhere, and some of the villagers were already butchering them so they wouldn’t have to go hungry. The village water pump had been destroyed and household utensils and belongings lay strewn on the ground.

Most people in Kanukurudio are pastoralists who depend on their animals for their livelihoods and as a source of food during drought. Coming from a farming community myself, I understand the deep pain of losing animals. Interviewing the members of the community when emotions were raw was tough, and I tried to be as sensitive as possible with my questions.

One interviewee stood out to me the most. Mzee Naree Lomilio is a father of eight who lost 150 goats in the floods. His wife was also swept away, but thankfully survived by holding on to a branch for hours until the villagers found her and pulled her to safety.

“The floods caught many of us off guard. They began like the usual rains but continued pouring heavily, with most of us ending up stranded with our livestock in the field. We usually keep our goats at home in the kraal (enclosure), but they too were washed away,” explained Mzee Naree.

Vivian and her colleague interview villager Mzee Naree about his experience of the flooding

At this point, Mzee Naree began to cry. “This is too much,” he said. “I would rather die than live like this!” His community rallied around him to offer support – summoning the strength to offer him comfort despite contending with their own grief.

“If only there was a way we could have known the floods were coming, we would have been better prepared,” Mzee Naree continued.

According to local authorities, more than 472 people were displaced by the floods – with many people in the area requiring food, water and support to rebuild what they lost.

But another huge challenge facing villages like Kanakurudio is a lack of access to media. No radio stations, including my own, reach the region, severely limiting access to timely and practical weather information which could have helped people like Mzee Naree to prepare.

This is why �鶹Լ�� Media Action is providing wind-up and solar-powered radios, with several pre-recorded programmes loaded on to memory cards, to improve community access to, and understanding of, weather and climate information. Understanding threats, and what actions to take to minimise risk, can save lives and livelihoods.

Vivian interviewing members of the community in a safe area

My experience travelling to Kanakurudio was deeply moving, and speaking to affected people helped me learn more about the local community, their farming techniques, and what information they most need – all of which I will apply to my show.

I dream of a time when people like Mzee Naree need not worry about crises such as flooding. But the weather in Turkana is becoming increasingly unpredictable and putting more and more lives at risk. I am determined to continue supporting people like Mzee Naree through my programme – helping them to adapt to a climate that’s changing so quickly around us.

Vivian Achwa is the Producer with Radio Mataa, a local Kenyan radio station partnering with �鶹Լ�� Media Action as part of our Weather Wise project. Weather Wise aims to help farmers, fishermen, and pastoralists in East Africa better prepare for weather events through improved climate and weather journalism – find out more here.

In May 2020, we were delighted to announce the launch of a new climate project in the Horn of Africa called DOWN2EARTH, which will build on the success of Weather Wise and our established media partnerships in the region.

Stand up and be heard

2016-09-05T08:00:00+00:00

Bribing people for their vote is common in Kenya – and young people are especially vulnerable. Jackie Christie explains how a new radio show is helping young people learn more about politics.

It was a stark comment, but one that highlights the challenges facing politics in Kenya: “Take their money yes, but vote for the candidate of your choice.” The young man was reflecting on the all-too-common practice of politicians ‘buying votes’ with cash or gifts, during a phone-in, on the first episode of �鶹Լ�� Sema, a brand new debate radio show for young people in Kenya.

The series opened with the question: ‘Do political parties really care about young people?’ It’s a live issue ahead of national elections in 2017 and our listener’s views chime with an Aga Khan University report published earlier this year. It found that whilst young Kenyans have generally positive views about politics and democracy, 40% said they would only vote for a candidate who bribed them.

‘Sema’ is a popular shorthand greeting in Kenya and means ‘tell me’ or ‘speak’. Inspiring young people to speak up is exactly what �鶹Լ�� Sema aims to do.

This external content is available at its source: �鶹Լ�� Sema

�鶹Լ�� Sema was born out of �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya, a national TV and radio debate show that brought together well-known public figures with the public to debate the big issues of the day. One of the most surprising things I learnt as a senior production manager for �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya was that young people formed a significant portion of our audience. The show wasn’t youth- orientated but our research told us that more than a third of regular viewers and listeners were between the ages of 15 and 24. With this knowledge, we decided to create something new for this under-served audience.

Little more than a year after �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya came off air, �鶹Լ�� Sema began life on the �鶹Լ�� Swahili Service. With its mix of topical discussion, young personalities, music and a playful approach to politics, it’s not exactly a chip off the old block. Through entertaining discussion and debate, the show aims to address the absence of information about politics in the media aimed at young people.

Stand up and be heard

Actress, TV host and radio presenter, Phylistiah (Phylis) Mwatee is the programme’s dynamic young host. Equally at home interviewing politicians and musicians, Phyllis brings an infectious sense of fun as well as a keen intellect to the programme, which she combines with a strong message to Kenyan youth – ‘simama usikike’ (stand up and be heard).

This external content is available at its source: Phylistiah (Phylis) Mwatee, presenter of �鶹Լ�� Sema

She breezed through her first show and afterwards told me why it’s so important for young people to have a show like this: “As we move towards the elections we are constantly being told ‘now is our time’. With this programme, I finally believe we have an opportunity to make our voices heard to affect the [political] debate.”

Our social media producer, Audrey Wabire helps continue the conversation ‘off-air’ and ‘online’ and is keen to capitalise on a new wave of tech-savvy Kenyans. “Mobile use in Kenya is high and young people are using their phones for data rather than voice and SMS (text). Social media is the way young people keep in touch with each other therefore it’s the best way for us to keep in touch with them” she tells me. A variety of content including behind-the-scenes films, music videos of featured artists and content from partners will feature across a variety of social media platforms.

As �鶹Լ�� Sema develops, I hope that the conversations it sparks can help support young people to make more informed choices and support them to shape the kind of Kenya they want to see.

Related links

• Follow �鶹Լ�� Sema on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• Find out more about our work in Kenya
• Go back to the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website

How a volunteer journalist used radio to combat cholera in Kenya

2016-08-24T08:00:00+00:00

Passing on skills to a new generation of broadcast journalists is helping save lives in Kenya. Mark explains how a fresh-faced volunteer single-handedly developed a radio programme designed to tackle cholera.

I began mentoring Sayid in a studio at Wajir Community Radio and was immediately impressed by him. He had just finished his fourth year of high school and had joined the station as a volunteer presenter. Fresh faced and without any previous media experience, it was a gutsy entry into the industry.

Developing young journalists

Sayid was a quick learner, getting through sessions on interview skills, news writing and producing different radio formats (e.g. drama) at lightning speed. After each session we’d pick a topic and Sayid would go into the community to practise what he’d learnt. The new volunteer quickly learnt the ropes. He seized every chance to report news; collecting interviews, writing scripts, editing audio clips and presenting from the studio.

When reports of a number of people dying from cholera in Wajir County came in earlier this year, he acted quickly.

Siyad (right) interviews Mohamed Abei, a community leader in Wajir County

Tackling cholera through radio

On his own initiative Sayid produced a one-off radio programme about the disease. The show, which included interviews with health experts, vox-pops with cholera survivors, news segments and public service announcements, resonated well, becoming the talk of the town. Its success led to a weekly programme dedicated to tackling cholera.

Nothing gives me more joy than when I see my mentees putting into practice the things we learnt together, especially when it involves saving lives.

Just a year after I first met him, Sayid had spread his wings, leaving Wajir Community Radio to join a local TV station as a correspondent. There’s always a touch of sadness when volunteers leave to climb the career ladder, but with it, comes immense pride. I bumped into him the other day. He was armed with a huge camera and on his way to cover a public rally which the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta was attending. He smiled and told me, “I still follow your teachings Mark, the things you taught me for radio apply to TV as well.”

In a similar story, David Njuguna explains how mentoring helped a volunteer-run radio station tackle cholera in Nairobi.

Related links

More about our work in Kenya
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Go back to the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website

A true partnership

2016-04-11T09:10:21+00:00

Joseph Warangu, Sema Kenya presenter with Jacob Kioria, Beyond the Headlines presenter at a debrief session

Working together, �鶹Լ�� Media Action and the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) have transformed a shabby studio into a HD home for KBC’s flagship politics programme, Beyond the Headlines.

I think it’s fair to say that the development community has a tendency to overuse the ‘p’ word. I’ve seen it used to describe a variety of relationships, however slender or remote. My experience of working with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) over the last few years would suggest that occasionally, these relationships earn the description of a true partnership.

We had worked with KBC for two seasons, when they broadcast �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya, a groundbreaking political debate show which helped people ask their leaders questions, and in doing so, help hold them to account. During this collaboration, staff at KBC benefited from exposure to new production techniques, among them, moderating debates and developing compelling scripts.

Both sides felt that if our capacity strengthening was to come to fruition KBC should produce their own show. One year later, and without fanfare, the first show Beyond the Headlines aired on KBC Channel 1.

Isaac Mwaura, a guest, discussing voter registration on an early Beyond the Headlines episode

The new programme isn’t Sema Kenya and was never intended to be. It is KBC’s own flagship politics show designed to help audiences understand some of the key issues behind the stories which make the headlines. During the month of pilot programmes the show’s producers demonstrated they weren’t afraid of tackling sensitive content. Themes included corruption, police reforms and security one year on from the Garissa attack where 148 people died after gunmen stormed a university in northern Kenya.

A studio fit for purpose

As exciting as the pilot was, we quickly realised the show would need a permanent home. The one suitable studio at KBC was already operating beyond capacity. So we had no choice but to look again at a scruffy former radio studio, home to an increasingly decrepit piano and little else. It didn’t even have mains power. Engineers who had been at KBC for decades couldn’t tell me when it was last used as a studio – instead of its usual guise as a makeshift staff chapel.

The Kenyan Broadcasting Corporations's old 'Grey Studio'.

It was going to be a considerable undertaking to turn this shabby space into something that could house a live show. A broadcast engineering consultant provided me with schematics for video, talkback, sound and data. It was a blizzard of wiring, converters and electrical engineering. I hoped if I stared at the diagrams long enough a picture of a studio would appear.

Sparking a national conversation

The consultant gave me a long list of work which KBC had to undertake: everything from installing air conditioning and power to fitting a carpet.

Throughout the whole nerve-racking period, KBC upheld their side of agreement and contributed significant time, manpower and funds. As a result, a long- neglected corner of the KBC buildings is now their first HD studio.

Jackie, with senior members of the Beyond the Headlines production crew at a debrief session

I’m happy KBC has a new show to help spark a national conversation about politics in the run-up to Kenya’s elections in 2017, and that we have a partnership that matters.

Related links

Our work in Kenya
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Go back to the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website

Tackling cholera through radio in Kenya

2016-04-05T09:26:11+00:00

Kamadi, presenter at Mtaani Radio in Nairobi, Kenya

For World Health Day, we look at how a volunteer-run local radio station is helping prevent cholera in Kenya.

Last year Kenya was facing a devastating cholera outbreak. It started in the capital, Nairobi and by June 2015, a total of 4,937 cases and 97 deaths had been reported nationally.

According to public health officials, the spread of cholera in Nairobi particularly affected people living in slums. Frequent bursting of sewer lines, poor sanitation facilities and heavy rains played a major role in the outbreak. Poor hygiene practices – such as not washing hands before eating or preparing food – also contributed to the spread of disease. The outbreak eventually petered out, but the environment and practices that contributed to the spread of cholera continue to pose a threat.

In a quiet courtyard, away from the hustle and bustle of Nairobi’s Kawangware slum, a community radio station was planning a response.

A tap outside Mtaani Radio

Local radio

Mtaani Radio, run by a team of volunteers, was a hive of activity when I walked into their studio last week. They were recording content for ‘WASH Wednesdays’, a show looking at ways listeners can improve their health and hygiene. The show, reaching over 100,000 people in the Kawangware community, was just about to start.

“It’s time we the people of Kawangware demanded our constitutional right of access to clean water from the government. This will go a long way in reducing outbreaks of water-borne diseases” said Kamadi, editor and presenter of the show.

“It’s also our responsibility to ensure we treat or boil drinking water before consumption so that we can reduce the amount of time and money we spend seeking medical attention” he continued. “A healthy country is a productive country.”

The show included questions texted in from listeners and an interview with a public health official who provided advice on avoiding cholera.

As a �鶹Լ�� Media Action mentor, helping them produce creative, engaging and interactive content on WASH (Water, Sanitation and Health) issues, I’m pleased. This show is exactly the content we’d been working towards.

David Njuguna mentoring a presenter at Mtaani Radio

During the outbreak last year, one thing public health officials did to control the spread of cholera in Kawangware area was to close down food vending kiosks that failed to meet the required health standards. In support of this initiative, Mtaani Radio produced public service announcements (PSAs) targeting food vendors and their customers to raise awareness on the importance of observing hygiene to reduce the risk of contracting cholera.

Dirty milk

Here’s an excerpt from one of the PSAs, aired 5 times a day to ensure maximum reach:

Vendor: Fresh milk for sale!
Customer: Could I have some for twenty shillings?
Vendor: Right away mam
(Starts to serve the customer)
Customer: That cup is so dirty and you are serving me without washing it first! That will make us sick. I don’t want milk anymore!
Announcement: Do you know that washing can prevent diseases like cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid and other dirt and water-related diseases? Be wise and wash your utensils with clean water before using them.
Vendor: Now I know. I will be washing all my utensils before serving my customers.

The PSAs reflect common scenarios in local shops, and are acted out in local accents. They are powerful examples of how local radio can relate to their communities in ways national radio may not.

They are having real impact too.

One listener told Mtaani Radio staff, “[After hearing a PSA] My child challenged me to wash my hands before serving her food, because of what she’d heard on the radio.”

After the tragedies of last year, the threat of cholera is never far from our minds. Tackling cholera requires sustained effort, before, during and after an outbreak. I’m very happy Mtaani radio is revisiting the topic.

Making Waves in Kenya: Stellah

2016-03-08T12:41:58+00:00

For International Women’s Day 2016, Stellah – a presenter for a community radio station in Nairobi – explains how she’s using radio as a platform to inspire young women to succeed.

I’m a volunteer radio presenter at Mtaani Radio, a community based radio station in Nairobi, Kenya. I’ve been doing this for close to two years now. You know what they say, practice makes perfect and so I’m just practicing my talent and hopefully this will pay off some day.

During my two years at the station, I’ve been lucky enough to be supported by Davie, a �鶹Լ�� Media Action mentor who has helped me plan my show, communicate more effectively and create content that’s relevant to listeners.

His advice has helped the station produce shows and Public Service Announcements (PSAs) that use the power of radio to share different ways people can improve their health – like washing hands with soap before preparing food to avoid conditions like diarrhoea.

On International Women’s Day, we’ll be broadcasting a special radio show looking at the issues confronting women in my community, such as domestic violence, teenage pregnancy and early marriage. As a female radio presenter, it’s easier for me to relate to the issues that women in my community face – and radio is a powerful platform to help encourage change.

I feel very proud when young girls come up to me in the street or post on Facebook to tell me that they had been inspired by the show.

While presenting, I’m always thinking about how I can guide young people and inspire them in a positive way. My latest show was on ‘success’, where I got local business leaders and role models to help show my listeners that through hard work and determination, they can get to where they want to be.

I believe that the majority of problems we have on earth are as a result of you and me, so if you and me can work together, then we can make the world a better place.

Read more inspiring stories of how women are using media to make waves.

Making Waves in Libya: Libya's story
Making Waves in Nepal: Bidhya’s story
Making Waves in Tanzania: Meena’s story
Making Waves in Sierra Leone: Olabisi’s story
Making Waves in Cambodia: YoKi’s story
Making Waves in South Sudan: Winnie's story
Making Waves in Somalia: Yasmin's story

Terms of engagement in extreme times

2015-07-30T09:00:00+00:00

Watch a film about �鶹Լ�� Pop Up in Kenya.

The �鶹Լ��’s roving bureau ‘Pop Up’ did exactly that in Nairobi last week. Kenya was its first destination outside of the United States and timely too, arriving on the cusp of US President Obama’s visit to the country.

The idea of Pop Up is to talk to ordinary people about stories they think the �鶹Լ�� should be covering in their country. I saw this as an opportunity to crowd-source information for a new piece of research which �鶹Լ�� Media Action is about to begin on the drivers of extremism in East Africa. We want to understand more about radicalism in Kenya: what’s the role of the media, who in society is most susceptible, what motivates them and how can people be persuaded to stop.

So my colleagues and I joined the Pop Up audience to ask a few questions. Pop Up ‘Face of Kenya’ presenter Anne Soy handed over to our moderator Victor Muyakane, news anchor from our broadcast partner KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation), and the floor was ours.

Defining radicalism

Sadly, Kenya is no stranger to violence. Some regions are regularly associated with repeated and often deadly militant attacks.

The audience began by discussing their understanding of the meaning of terrorism and extremism. One woman described it as “an extreme form of caring for a certain type of truth or community” and that people take extreme measures “as a result of seeing instances of injustice”. Another suggested that young people are particularly vulnerable, “radicalisation is when our youth are being transformed into the terrorism community.” Whether people become radicalised by stealth or actively pursue it, it was clear to this audience that this new type of “waging war” has rapidly become a feature of Kenyan society.

An “extremist” in the family?

At one point, an older woman who had been quietly listening spoke up. She talked about her cousin who she described as “an extremist” affiliated to Al-Shabaab (an Islamic militant organisation based in Somalia) and what it felt like to have him in the family. The cousin was recently killed in a shoot-out with security forces at the Kenyan coast. “He is my relative, I have to cry over him. Every time I watch TV and see a parent crying I am mourning him,” she explained. The tension she felt over the loss of a relative involved in perpetrating violent acts was evident, “he was buried last week but for us as a family it was a relief because [at some point] we knew it was going to happen.”

As a Muslim, she strenuously denied that such acts are connected to religion: “They do it because of frustration. It was something that was planted in their minds. Something they could have avoided doing.” One member of the audience questioned the silence among families: “What do we do with the families of those people who have had radicals within their families? Do we push them away from the community just because they had those people in their families?”

Media profiling

Stereotyping racial groups in Kenya was considered by many in the audience to be the fault of the media, “When it comes to violent extremism, the one thing that comes to mind is what the media has painted for us. A Somali looking person.” Another felt this racial profiling has gone further, “If it’s an Arab, it’s a terrorist, if it’s a black person, it’s a thug and if it’s a white person, they are mentally ill.”

Others were more optimistic about the role media can play in telling a different story: “We have a singular narrative that people become terrorists because they have no opportunities. It’s not true.”
After the excitement generated by the arrival of US President Obama in Kenya, it’s worth noting that high on his agenda was the need to find new ways to reach out to disenfranchised groups in this part of Africa.

An insightful observation came from a young woman who sees communication as a weapon against radicalisation: “Talk, if you see a problem talk. Do not be afraid to speak. I would honestly rather die for speaking now than to die ten years later with 100 people because I did not say anything.”

Related links

Watch a video about �鶹Լ�� Pop Up in Kenya
Read more about �鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Kenya
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook
Go back to the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website

Question: How is a TV show improving governance in Kenya?

2015-02-02T14:37:07+00:00

Sema Kenya audience

It’s been a significant few months for the “Any Questions” style TV and Radio show Sema Kenya. As Senior Production Manager Jackie Christie explains in her last post, after three years and over 80 episodes later, the team behind the show is handing over production to the Kenyan state broadcaster, KBC. For those of us working in �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s Research and Learning team, this presents an opportunity to reflect the programme’s impact.

Researchers in London and Nairobi have been working since the creation of Sema Kenya not only to ensure that it remained relevant and appealing to audiences, but also to assess the programme’s impact on governance in Kenya.

Sema Kenya has had a clear purpose from its inception: to create a national conversation on democratic processes in Kenya, supporting accountability and increasing people’s knowledge of key governance issues, focusing on matters our audiences have said are most important to them, including unemployment, security, education and the high cost of living.

Our research conducted in 2013 suggests that, through its locally driven programming and a format based on constructive moderated discussion, Sema Kenya was able to make a distinct contribution at election time. This was delivered by presenting a diversity of topics, views and dialogue at a time when a majority of Kenyan media maintained a narrow election focus aimed at “keeping the peace” by avoiding sensitive issues such as ethnicity and land - key topics perceived to have contributed to the post-election violence in 2008.

Improving knowledge

Our findings show media can have a constructive and meaningful role even in challenging contexts. However there were other key questions we wanted to answer, such as the extent to which Sema Kenya contributed to increasing audiences’ knowledge on key governance issues. The same study, which included a nationally representative survey of the population aged 15 and above, showed that the vast majority (93%) who listened or watched the programme regularly (at least every other week) thought that Sema Kenya improved their understanding of key governance issues. But we wanted to go further to determine if the increase in knowledge was associated with the programme or with, for example, an already existing interest in politics amongst those audiences or level of education.

To be able to answer this question, we created a scale of knowledge based on four main governance themes that the programme tackled: unemployment, security, implications of the new constitution and implementation of the devolution. We looked at whether people who watched or listened to the programme regularly were also showing higher levels of knowledge, even when taking into account their gender, level of education, purchasing power, interest in politics or group membership amongst other factors.

Our analysis showed that regular exposure to Sema Kenya was indeed associated with an increase in knowledge of governance, while controlling for other factors. This is an important finding because it shows Sema Kenya had successfully achieved its key objective of encouraging dialogue and improving knowledge on the democratic processes affecting Kenyans, a feat especially significant in the context of constitutional changes in the way Kenya was governed from 2010.

What about accountability?

The evidence so far suggests that Sema Kenya has contributed to facilitating a national conversation about the key issues affecting Kenyans and to improving knowledge on key governance issues. But what about accountability?

The majority (94%) of Sema Kenya’s regular audiences agree that the programme has played a role in holding government to account. Our findings so far suggest that it has done so by empowering audiences to ask questions and by putting leaders’ answers and promises on the record. Jackie Christie’s latest blog post provides vivid and inspiring examples of the contribution of the show on accountability.

While we know the show’s impact on our regular audiences, how did the programme influence leaders? In Sema Kenya’s third season, the research team were busy interviewing decision-makers, government officials and local influencers. Getting access to these people isn’t an easy task but we wanted to better understand whether and how the programme may have played a role in driving demand for accountability, improving responsiveness, the transparency in decision-making and, ultimately, the service delivery to improve people’s lives.

Visit the �鶹Լ�� Media Action website for more research on Kenya or sign-up to our newsletter to keep up to date with the latest findings from �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s Research and Learning Team.

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�鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya takes a bow

2015-01-21T10:40:30+00:00

�鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya production team

I first met Joseph Warungu in 2012 when he handed me a report he had written on the media environment in Kenya and the possibility of a programme themed on governance. None of us knew then that not only would he become the familiar face and host of the �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks) TV show, but that we would still be on air three years later.

It will be a bittersweet moment for all the team when we record the final show with Joseph and our most recent host, Bonnie Musambi in January. As we say “Kwaheri” (“goodbye” in Swahili) for the last time, I want to take a moment to reflect on what Sema Kenya has achieved.

We were on the road for the first two seasons of Sema Kenya. Our entire production entourage would pack its bags and head deep into the towns, cities and counties of Kenya. Advance teams of audience producers would already be on the ground speaking to local people about their issues and recruiting them to participate in the ‘studio’ audience. As many as 140 people would patiently gather in soaring temperatures to ask questions of their leaders or sometimes just to listen to their account of their performance.

Bucking the trend

Sema Kenya played a particularly important role during the 2013 elections. The programme bucked the trend of mainstream media, who steered clear of sensitive topics and were accused of having abdicated their watchdog responsibility. By contrast, we continued to provide a platform for dialogue, discussing issues such as land, ethnic tensions and internally displaced persons.

In our final season we have based ourselves at our partner station KBC, the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation, and brought audiences from around the country to the capital, Nairobi. The audiences have been smaller but more representative and I am happy to report that Kenyans from all 47 counties have participated in the show.

Audience participation in Sema Kenya has been one of the highlights for me. For example, the lady from Kajiado who quoted the constitution verbatim as she berated parliamentarians on their lack of public consultation, is a perfect example of how ordinary people have used the opportunity the programme offers to speak truth to power.

Our research tells us how motivating and inspiring this can be. A member of a focus group explained: “When you watch, it kind of inspires you to want to be like this other person…it makes you ask yourself, if this person is participating, why am I not participating? Because most of the time people don’t participate because they feel the political process is for the elite.”

Holding leaders to account

Supporting accountability is something we talk a lot about at �鶹Լ�� Media Action. For me this means insisting that elected officials and leaders are held responsible for their actions by the communities they serve. Politicians take the show seriously and now it's rare to have pull-outs or no-shows. Being asked by our Senior Producer John Byron Ohaga to come to the Sema Kenya shoot in Nairobi seems to inspire confidence and respect in politicians too used to giving the media the runaround. It has been hugely satisfying to see senior figures and decision makers, MPs, governors and senators sit before people who have probably only ever seen them on television.

Our final show will have no panel and be hosted jointly by our two presenters, reflecting on the trials and tribulations of hosting the show and airing some of the programme highlights. I asked our Editor Odhiambo Joseph what his own personal highlights have been during his tenure. He reminded me of a show where we discussed the menace of corruption in the police force. During the programme we had aired undercover filming showing traffic police taking bribes. It’s a familiar scenario to most drivers unlucky enough to be stopped at a roadblock in Kenya. As well as some penetrating and relentless questioning from Joseph Warungu keen to force the then-inspector general of police to accept responsibility for corruption in the force, he insisted that he go on record to promise the live audience that they would not be victimised or punished for speaking freely during the programme. People put their trust in us and the show became a safe space for them to air their issues.

Taking a bow

Over 80 episodes later, it is fitting we take a bow and hand over the reins to KBC to make the show their own. What is clear to me is that the appetite for dialogue, debate and discussion around issues which affect the lives of ordinary people in Kenya continues to grow.

“Kwaheri” �鶹Լ�� Sema Kenya. “Karibu” (“welcome” in Swahili) KBC Sema Kenya?

Watch this space.

Related links:

• Read more about Sema Kenya

• Listen to Sema Kenya on �鶹Լ�� Swahili

• Like Sema Kenya on Facebook

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Making a difference: community co-operation in Kenya

2014-12-10T11:08:05+00:00

A girl attends class in Kibera, Kenya

Academics have been mulling over the tricky term "collective efficacy" for decades. Collective, what? Well, exactly. In its essence, collective efficacy is the belief that taking action with others can make a positive change. But I learned last week that if you want to really get to the bottom of what collective efficacy looks like in practice, Kenya is the place to find out.

Through our governance programming, we hope to make people feel more confident about coming together with others to make a difference. So I spent a week in Nairobi, conducting interviews with people from across the city to find out what this elusive concept looks like on the ground. And they told us a lot.

Sitting in the office in London before I left, we ummed and ahhed about what we thought collective efficacy meant and whether we could think of examples of when people in Britain had united to find solutions to local or national problems. And it’s safe to say that while we struggled a little, the Nairobians we spoke to had no such difficulty.

Working together

The first interview was with Diana, a 30 year-old community volunteer from Embakasi in the south of Nairobi. At the start of the interview she described how she didn’t consider herself qualified to participate in politics as she had no formal education. But it soon became clear that this could not be further from the truth. She spoke with passion about how she had organised a discussion in her community on why so few girls were attending school. They discovered that even though primary education is free, many schools were charging enrolment fees, which was deterring families from sending their daughters to school. Diana and others from the community went straight to local head teachers and successfully persuaded them not to charge pupils for enrolling. Her experiences of community activism meant she had enormous faith in her community’s capacity to find solutions to its problems by working together; “One hand cannot clap by itself”, she asserted; “but when two hands join together, we can be heard”.

Next John, an artist from Makadara, described how high youth unemployment is causing many young people in his community to turn to drugs. He explained how the community had mobilised as one to reach out to young people and talk to them about the dangers of drug use. When I asked him what it meant to him to work together, he replied; “It’s about having the will power, after you have known the problem, you don't just sit there, you take action and you improve things”.

It became clear to me that there is lot of confidence in Kenyans’ compassion and capacity to react to problems, as Diana explained; “When something happens, Kenyans run there to help”.

Hearing but not listening

However, faith in their fellow Kenyans is not always mirrored by faith in their leaders to react to them. Mary, a student from Kibera, explained; “There is listening and there is hearing. They would hear us […] but listening means they will take action and make the changes. It doesn't happen most often.”

Jennifer, an unemployed young woman from Embakasi spoke about the need to push leaders to react; “Our leaders like working under pressure so if you just talk they don't listen. But if you do demonstrations, they show interest” she said.

In fact, as well as putting pressure on leaders, in many cases, communities were organising to solve social problems, such as crime, and deliver services, like waste management, themselves and bypassing official channels.

From what I heard in a short trip, it sounds like Kenyans know a lot about how to work collectively to get results. But while the people we spoke to felt that working collectively increased the chances of them being listened to by leaders; it was clear their demands may sometimes fall on deaf ears. This raises the next big question: when people come together to raise concerns, what role can the media play in making politicians respond?

�鶹Լ�� Media Action research.

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Improving accountability in Kenya

2014-04-25T14:06:04+00:00

The editorial team of our TV and radio debate show Sema Kenya – which returns for its third season this Sunday – have to be some of the luckiest programme makers in Kenya.

A large chunk of any producer’s time is spent looking for relevant, up-to-date information that they can use to engage audiences and enrich programme content. Happily for our Sema Kenya producers they have access to our secret weapon: R&L – aka �鶹Լ�� Media Action’s Research and Learning department – who do a lot of this heavy lifting for them.

In addition to support from the R&L team in London, we have three R&L staff in our Nairobi office – Dr Angela Muriithi, Sam Otieno and Norbert Aluku – who provide the editorial team with insightful gold-dust, making Sema Kenya arguably the most rigorously researched programme in Kenya today.

Over the last two years the team has conducted focus groups, rapid audience feedback sessions, national surveys and more. They’ve sifted through a blizzard of figures, mountains of qualitative data and performed weird and mysterious tasks such as ‘regression analysis’. (I’m told it’s not painful.)

And it’s all to make sure that Sema Kenya isn’t just a great programme that appeals to its audiences, but one that also achieves its development objectives: supporting accountability in Kenya by providing people with a platform for constructive, audience-driven debate.

Media and Kenya’s elections

The R&L team’s in-depth analysis is evident in a new piece of research by Dr Angela Muriithi and her colleague Georgina Page, which sets out to explore the role Sema Kenya played during the Kenyan 2013 general election.

As with all of the R&L team’s outputs, the paper aims to not only inform our production but also support others in our field. It’s available publicly online so others can use the data too and only last week, Angela also presented the research at a UNDP and EC conference in Jordan which brought together more than 200 electoral commissioners, judges and senior state officials from across the world to discuss and share knowledge about electoral support.

But to understand exactly why this research is important and relevant now, we have to go back to Kenya in December 2007.

The general election that Christmas was exciting. It was my first Kenyan election, and just as in the UK, I was glued to the media watching and listening to results and the endless analysis throughout the day of the vote.

What struck me was that unlike voters in many European countries, the majority of Kenyans still clearly sufficiently valued participation in the democratic process to stand for hours in the hot sun, queuing to cast their vote.

Watching lines of patient voters here is an awe-inspiring sight. It illustrates a faith in the democratic process that I only vaguely experienced as a UK voter at my local community hall.

Sadly for Kenya, the promise of that ballot was all too quickly extinguished.

Within hours of the voting booths closing and the winner of the presidential race being announced, a wave of violence was unleashed which saw over 1000 people murdered and half a million displaced.

Finger-pointing swiftly followed, with the media taking a large portion of the blame.

Everything from mis-reporting to hate-speech was said to have stoked the flames of the mayhem that followed the election.

It’s little wonder then that the 2013 election and the media’s role was so closely scrutinised.

‘Negotiating difference’

In the analysis of the media’s role during the 2007 election, a new term entered the vocabulary: ‘negative ethnicity’. In a country made up of more than 50 tribal groups one might expect this to be inevitable.

However this does not explain the previous decades of relatively peaceful co-existence.

What this briefing paper has shown however is that Sema Kenya is helping to encourage dialogue between disparate groups by highlighting commonalities rather than differences.

In a huge and geographically diverse country like Kenya, providing a platform to ‘negotiate difference’ as the researchers call it, can clearly provide some much needed social glue.

The paper doesn’t neglect to point out however that the media’s behaviour during the 2013 election was to some extent cowed.

So chastened was it by the accusations laid at its door after 2007’s awful events, it was said to have overcompensated in its desire to maintain peace. This could explain why the research showed Kenyans felt the media coverage during the election lacked depth.

Empowering effect

For me the most powerful role a programme like Sema Kenya can play in this context is to offer a mechanism for people to question those they elected.

The accountability agenda for Sema Kenya is its driving force and one the programme makers work hard to maintain.

This new research shows that the programme is helping to encourage Kenyans to expect more than just empty promises from their leaders. It is also empowering Kenyans themselves.

An audience member at one of the recordings explained why it is important programmes like Sema Kenya remain in the Kenyan media landscape: “There is someone like me and you… when you watch, it kind of inspires you to want to be like this other person. It makes you ask yourself, if this person is participating, why am I not participating? Because most of the time people don’t participate because they feel the political process is for the elites.”

Before, during and after elections, the need to stimulate debate, discussion and dialogue between Kenyans and their leaders remains as necessary as ever.

The third series of Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks) starts on KBC1 and �鶹Լ�� Swahili on Sunday 27 April 2014.

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Speaking the same language?

2013-12-13T16:54:39+00:00

With more than 50 episodes under our belt, the team on Kenya’s TV and radio debate show Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks) has the show’s many production tasks down to a fine art. But that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing. Take, for example, the process of inviting panellists on to the programme.

For our latest episode, a special show to mark 50 years of independence in Kenya, the producers drew up a fabulous wish list of potential participants: scholars, advocates, artists and opinion leaders, freedom fighters, politicians, writers and activists. People who had shaped Kenya’s political and social history, and people who had strong opinions about its future as well as its past. I was excited just reading the list.

But, of course it’s one thing to make a wish list, it’s another to execute it. So with a few weeks to go, the producers and researchers hit the phones.

Sema Kenya’s studio audience watch the debate during a special episode to mark 50 years of Kenya’s independence. In the centre: Evans Gor Semelang'o, Chair of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund.

Opening gambit

First comes the mheshimiwa opener. This means ‘honourable’ in Kiswahili and recognises a person’s status coupled with an added dose of flattery for good measure.

Next comes the explanation about the programme and why this person’s contribution in particular will add special value. After this the location – Sema Kenya travels to different counties around the country most weeks.

Once the logistics are out of the way, the killer question is dropped into conversation: “And you know, of course, the programme is in Kiswahili?”

At this point any one of a number of responses occur: outright refusal followed by silence as the producer or researcher listens to the previously enthusiastic guest frantically back-pedalling; reassuring noises from the producer about the quality of the panellists’ Kiswahili; and at the end of the call, if the producer has been successful, the guest accepts and the producer does their ‘happy’ dance.

But for our special independence programme, we learned that a large percentage of potential guests didn’t feel confident enough speaking Kiswahili to participate.

National language?

The lingua franca of business in Kenya is overwhelmingly English despite the fact that Kiswahili is taught in schools as a second language.

A Kenyan MP recently tried to have Kiswahili declared the official language in government offices and in the national assembly. But it was found that only 40% of Kenyans could speak it competently.

Saying that, most Kenyans speak a minimum of three languages – their mother tongue, Kiswahili and English. The young hipsters of Nairobi also cannibalise English and Swahili to make their own language – sheng. In rural Kenya people also speak many dialects of local languages.

50 years on

On the far left, former Mau Mau freedom fighter Gitu wa Kahengeri; on the far right photographer, human rights campaigner and activist Boniface Mwangi; and on second row, far right, Leonard Mambo Mbotela, a veteran of Kenyan journalism.

Language considerations aside, thanks to the enthusiasm of our production team and our panellists, the special episode marking 50 years of Kenya’s independence was full of poignant and dramatic moments.

Instead of the usual format where audience put questions to a panel, we decided to allow people time to reflect on whether Kenya is where they hoped it would be after 50 years of self-rule. Kenyans from all over the country - including Mau Mau freedom fighters, veterans from the struggle for multi-party democracy, rap artists and outspoken bloggers – took part.

Juliani, a well-known musician, was seen consulting a Kiswahili dictionary before the show, so keen was he to express himself well.

Johnson Sakaja Chair of TNA, the ruling party in Kenya, talks to an audience member from the coast who recalls seeing the Union Jack lowered and the Kenyan flag raised in Uhuru Park in 1963.

Lingua franca

Having lived in Kenya for several years I often reflect on why my spoken Kiswahili is almost non-existent. Once Kenyans realise I am British, they waste no time practicing their generally excellent English on me. Of course a bigger issue is that I am no linguist and being based in the capital Nairobi it’s much easier to make myself understood in English than weak Kiswahili.

Perhaps this is the same challenge our potential panellists face?

It doesn’t necessarily follow that Kenyans are losing touch with their roots and culture because they struggle to speak the national language. In my experience Kenyans are enterprising and dynamic, quick to latch on to what they can use to get ahead. If this is English, then so be it.

It’s not surprising then that more and more people I meet, from street hawkers to businessmen, are now enrolling on courses to learn Mandarin.

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Kenya

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work on governance

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Communication is life!

2013-10-24T15:34:46+00:00

When I worked at Dadaab Refugee camp in northern Kenya, I saw how refugees would day in, day out tune into the �鶹Լ�� Somali Service and crowd around our agency information board to find out the latest news. Communication, it was obvious, is life!

This was forefront in my mind last week in Nairobi when the �鶹Լ�� Media Action team and I took part in the launch of the annual World Disasters Report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

This year, the report examines the profound impact of technological innovations on humanitarian action. We were at the event to show how media and humanitarian responders can work jointly together – the aim of our current project in Kenya.

Our key message to those attending the event was how important it is to create two-way communications - and we developed an interactive demonstration to show how to do it.

A hands-on demo

We came up with a scenario: a disastrous flood had hit the Nyando region in Kenya, an area perennially affected by flooding.

The media and humanitarian staff at the launch were then set the task of creating a mini radio station and airing a live lifeline programme.

The participants were at first a little daunted. But with our team’s help, they succeeded in creating a programme that provided practical information to affected communities, such as where food aid was available and how people could avoid water-borne diseases and trace displaced family members.

The programme also interviewed a woman affected by the flooding – played by an actress – who told how her son was missing since the floods and her younger daughter was in hospital with cholera.

Effective communication in a crisis

We showed how to communicate with affected communities during a crisis – and the important ways in which Lifeline programming differs from day to day journalism: it is for affected people and not about them, as such every second of airtime must offer something that will in some way help them cope with or improve their situation.

Participants learned how to handle interviews sensitively with people affected by a disaster and we emphasised the importance of investing in portable equipment which can be used during a humanitarian crisis when infrastructure may be destroyed.

But our key message was how important it is to place affected people at the forefront of such lifeline programming. Many of the participants acknowledged that all too often emergency responses through the media are purely one-way and that local media sources need support to do better two-way communication.

So we ensured that the participants knew how important it was to incorporate the voices of affected people into the programme, so they can share their experience, express their needs and concerns, ask questions and have space to hold relief providers to account.

We also showed participants how to provide contact details to enable people to get in touch with the programme makers at a later date and interact with the output. We emphasised that this was key!

Importance of listening

We were thrilled at the response. "The work that �鶹Լ�� Media Action is doing with disaster-affected communities is nothing short of excellent. I am impressed with the presentation, the radio simulation that you put together and the special lifeline programme," Rocco Nuri from the UNHCR Innovation team in Nairobi told me.

We were also careful to listen to the participants' input about how we could make lifeline programming more responsive and learned how strongly people felt that both media and humanitarian agencies should work closely together in humanitarian crises.

For example, the findings from Joint Needs Assessment processes (in which agencies gather information about the needs of disaster-affected communities) will help us develop programme content that is well-tailored to our audiences, in the same way that it helps other relief providers define what kind of aid they should to supply to whom.

The most important thing I learned was that we must listen, work with other actors in the field and remain in tune with the changing ways in which humanitarian support is delivered.

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Kenya

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Sema Kenya on traditions and taboos

2013-09-19T13:08:44+00:00

The latest episode of our TV and radio debate programme Sema Kenya came from the small town of Kapenguria in West Pokot, a county rich in culture and tradition. It was the perfect venue for a programme that explored how culture can both enrich and undermine development.

Before the cameras started rolling, the audience, panel and crew were entertained by a wonderful dance group. Their brilliant singing itself was a living embodiment of a tradition that, as an audience member said later in the show, "should never be abandoned".

The subject of their song, however, was a practice that was made illegal in Kenya in 2011: FGM/C - female genital mutilation/cutting.

Rethinking traditions

Through a show of hands, it was clear the audience knew that FGM/C was illegal. But approximately 75% of girls in the county are understood to be affected and, in certain areas, it continues to be a social norm.

Pushing such sensitive issues higher up the public agenda and increasing knowledge and awareness is, of course, at the heart of �鶹Լ�� Media Action's work. And the audience in this episode took full advantage of the opportunity to debate the practice’s effects and how it could be tackled within communities.

One audience member spoke about its impact on the education of girls in the county.

"As we speak, places like central and North Pokot are still continuing with it. So even if our girls go to school in large numbers, when they reach standard 6 or 5 and they are circumcised, they feel like adults. They [then] refuse to go to school."

Sema Kenya's presenter Joseph Warangu also directly asked one youth leader, Richard Ruto, if young men are prepared to challenge the stigma around this issue, asking him if he, personally, would marry a woman who had not been circumcised.

Richard replied, "I will accept. I have also been educating young people like me to do the same."

"So are they accepting?" Joseph continued. "They are," Richard said, before adding that social norms change community by community. "But it depends on where they are – young men in the interior [of the country] still believe it helps."

Government role

One of the guests on the programme, former international long-distance runner Tegla Lorupe, also stressed how important it is to gain the support of men: "One problem we have is that we forget to educate the men. We only speak about the women," he said.

"We should educate the boys when they are still in school so that when they go home they can tell the girls that circumcision will not help them at all," he advised. "I would like to urge the senator and the governor to put money aside and get some elders to go to schools and talk to the boys."

Joseph chats to MP Kapenguria Samuel Moroto and Mary Mariach Chair of women’s welfare organization, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake before the cameras started rolling.

Joseph pressed panellist Hon Simon Kachapin, the governor of West Pokot, for his response.

"We have made it a very high priority," Governor Kachapin said. "We know that these outdated traditions will take us behind as a county. We also want our girls to raise good families. We have set aside money that will enable organisations, women and all leaders to have a chance to educate the girls and their parents. And, as Tegla said, we should educate the boys too."

Judging from just this one episode of Sema Kenya, the people of West Pokot will be keen to hold him to his words.

Related links

Sema Kenya on �鶹Լ�� Swahili

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Kenya

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work on health

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The road well travelled

2013-08-01T12:40:47+00:00

This is the first in a series of blogs from Jackie as she and her team travel around Kenya for the TV and radio debate show Sema Kenya. Now in its second series, the show brings together a panel of local leaders to answer questions from the people they serve.

I often describe Sema Kenya as a three-ring circus minus the bears. This being Kenya however, animals often find a way to make their presence felt during production – the herd of dainty Thomson Gazelles in Kisumu in western Kenya, the dairy cows in Kajiado's green valleys or the ruminating goats in the dry plains of Turkana. The fact that we’re often tripping over wildlife is because on Sema Kenya we make an effort to go off the beaten track.

To date, the 40-strong members of the Sema Kenya team have clocked up 8,000 km in their travels around the country, enabling audiences and communities to speak directly to their leaders.

And on nearly every occasion, each location is new to the entire team.

The Sema Kenya audience and presenter Joseph Warungu.

In the normal run of a TV or radio series, you might expect to produce one or two outside broadcasts – or OBs, as they're usually called in the trade – to mark a special event or anniversary. On Sema Kenya, however, each and every weekly recording is an OB.

Looking leaders in the eye

When we do go the extra mile to do OBs in communities who have never had such first-hand exposure to media, we are almost always rewarded by an enthusiastic and inquisitive audience, keen to make the most of the opportunity to look their leaders in the eye.

Indeed for the majority of the live audience, the recording of a Sema Kenya programme is the first chance they have had to meet the people they voted for in a context other than a mass election rally.

A huge amount of careful planning and hard work goes into every programme. And every week, the effort is more than worth it.

Hot topics

For example, a few weeks ago we recorded a show in Narok in the heart of the Rift valley. The town is the capital of one of Kenya’s wealthiest counties, which boasts abundant cash crops and annual revenue of £15m from tourism in the Maasai Mara national reserve alone.

But allegations of abuse of this revenue abound. The same week as our recording, the county's Governor, Samuel Kuntai Tunai, had struggled to resist demands for impeachment for corruption and nepotism – after serving only four months in office.

Governor Tunai – along with the senator of the county Steven Ole Ntutu – were among the guests on the show’s panel and no time was lost by the audience as they demanded answers. Presenter Joseph Warungu summed up the audience’s feelings with the question, “We want to know how much of the yearly revenue goes into your pocket?”

In a series of well-mannered if tense exchanges, the governor defended his past connections with the company who collects revenue from the Mara and at the end of the show, promised that in two years the county will be leader in development issues.

Everyone on Sema Kenya is determined to be there to discuss if he’s made good on his promise.

It's the beginning of the high season now in Kenya and as tourists flock to witness the millions of migrating wildebeest and zebra, I go back to orchestrating our weekly Sema Kenya migration – turning the microphones and lenses on the politicians, pundits and power brokers of Kenya’s political landscape.

Related links

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work in Kenya

�鶹Լ�� Media Action's work on governance and rights

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