In My Community

United by a lot of diversity, my community includes the people I meet with daily. It includes those that I have known for a long time and still yet the one whom I just met a few minutes ago. To me, community members are the people who understand me and at least have one commonality aside from the many differences. We will often meet and share food while we talk over our issues. In my community we value the social life and must congregate often to catch up.

There is the situation where you are able to talk with somebody, discuss issues of similar concern. You may be bound by one thing, for example same church, same area of residence, same language or tribe, same clan and many other things. These scenarios make you members of one community and the obligation of members in these communities is to help one another. It is expected that the younger would respect the older and the older would provide much needed guidance to the younger generation. There is freedom of expression however the freedom is only within the acceptable rules, principals and taboos. Most times, dissenting views from younger people towards the older people are not very well received.

The media influences my community in the sense that most decisions made, stem from opinions gotten from the media. There is a big respect for the broadcast media since they are seen to be very credible and most members in my community would love to have the ‘media-say’ as gospel truth. However the biggest challenge my country faces in informing the citizens is the level of literacy. With more than 42 tribes, cultural differences and language barrier offer the biggest stumbling block. English and Swahili are the national languages but not many people are conversant with them. Infrastructural problems also make it impossible for some people to be reached.

Citizen journalism is very minimal as many members in my community believe in thought leaders and unitary statements. Therefore most people believe in meeting together, discussing issues and having a person to present the issues to the relevant authorities. Nevertheless most of the decisions and opinions given are normally informed by what is consumed mainly on broadcast media.

We All have a "ME Story"

“You can make it my son, you are destined for greatness.” Those were the words of my mother, the one person who has had the most impact on my life. From my inception, her dream was to see me advance in the knowledge of music and be able to play the piano. She ensured that a local music teacher would come to our little house every evening and offer the much required lessons. Despite not getting to the highest level of mastering the ‘ivory keys’, I must admit that she instilled a strong music culture in me. More than 20 years later, I can attest to having learnt discipline, determination, passion and generally hard work.

I would describe myself as an ambitious person who is extremely passionate about children’s music. This stems from an early childhood participation in my church’s children’s choir called Proactive Kids Choir. This inspired me to form a group; Praise Kids of Africa, where I train the children and write songs for them. Despite that, I am proud to have grown as a member in my children’s choir where I still serve as a teacher. Noble, is what I would call the passionate work I do, and the challenges I encounter are the pillars of persistence. Getting donors and sponsors to support some of our projects has been a hurdle, but the parents’ motivation and dedication to have their children participate in the programs has been extremely beneficial.

Being brought up in one of the major cities in Africa; Nairobi, has contributed largely to the media I have been exposed to. Being a host to International offices including one of the UN headquarters, Nairobi has been on the upward trajectory in technology advance. I consume a lot of website content and love getting updates through social media like Twitter. Through the internet, I have learned a great wealth of lessons and learned to respect our diversity. However, this exposure has created a divide between me and some of my family members who subscribe to traditional media. We seem to be reading from different scripts.

Even so, the greatest thing I have enjoyed is the knowledge of globalization. To know that we may be separated and many miles away from each other, but we can still connect, share and be one. The internet media has motivated me and I hope it reaches each and every person.