Category: Christine Mungai

The other day, I  was reminded recently of something I hadn’t thought about in years: The Bible begins in a garden, but ends in a city.

After five years, four months, two days, and nearly 120 editions of this newsletter, I’m writing to share that I’ll be stepping down as Baraza Media Lab’s Lead Curator at the end of April 2025.

I’m so excited to share what’s happening behind the scenes as we bring the Africa Media Festival 2025 to life. The response to our call for pitches has been phenomenal. Your ideas, creativity, and passion have blown us away, and I’m grateful to everyone who submitted a pitch to help shape this year’s program.

As we close out 2024, we asked our team to look back on the year and share what they'd tell their January selves. This year, we’ve brought on new hires, expanded our physical spaces, and began new and ambitious projects.

This week, the Baraza Media Lab hosted a PodConnect event titled Podcasting Trends 2024, featuring Doris Onyango, Production Manager at SemaBox, and Kiplagat J. Kiprop, Product Manager at SemaBox, moderated by Gathoni Ngumba, Community Manager at Afripods. The session brought to light exciting new trends and strategies shaping the future of podcasting in Africa and beyond. Here's a roundup of a few of the key takeaways shared by the stellar panel:

This week’s newsletter is continuing the tradition of inviting members of our community to write From The Curator’s Desk, and for this edition, I’m happy to hand it over to writer Ngito Makena, whose piece below is part of a project telling the stories of Nairobi titled ‘Humans of Nairobi/ Story za Nai’, published by Baraza Media Lab.

I tend to read (or to be more accurate, peruse through) a lot of scientific papers, partly because of my work as a journalist and partly out of my own interest - you know how the recommendations of our algorithmic overlords go. But I wasn’t prepared for how floored I’d be reading this paper in the journal Nature, benignly titled, “Unequal exchange of labour in the global economy”.

It has and continues to be physically, mentally and spiritually draining to demand for better governance and accountability. We must remember our bodies are fragile and need care, and that none of us can do this alone.I’d love to share some ways of ensuring this moment doesn't break us beyond repair. I had these graphics commissioned as a way to capture what it takes to live - and not just fight - in a time of revolution.

It’s been an incredible week in Kenya, and I am happy to continue the tradition of passing the mic to members of our community to guest curate this newsletter. This time we’re doing it a little differently, with three voices sharing their reflections on From The Curator’s Desk: Benter Dongo, HR Lead at Baraza Media Lab, Cynthia Adongo, Comms Asssociate at Baraza Media Lab, and Kevin Mwachiro, journalist, podcaster and activist.