Diversity With Diana Podcast

This DWD Podcast will feature host Diana Sifuna (She/her) and guest Martha Mwatha (She/her) is a lawyer, socialist feminist, an abolitionist, Human Rights Defender, and writer. She is also a rape victim/survivor, an ungovernable woman who prides herself in living life boldly, fearlessly, and authentically. Borrowing from the power of Mama Asante Waa, the bravery of Wangari Mathai and audacity of Stella Nyanzi as well as other powerful black women she presents as a decolonized and liberated Black, African Woman in all her fullness.

Martha believes in being an accomplice to the oppressed standing firmly on the words of Assata Shakur ‘It is the obligation of every person who claims to oppose oppression to resist the oppressor by every means at his or her disposal. Not to engage in physical resistance, armed resistance to oppression, is to serve the interests of the oppressor; no more, no less. There are no exceptions to the rule, no easy out...’ Diana seeks to understand the evolution of feminism and it’s socio-economic and political implication on the path to equality of men and women.

Join Diana and Martha on YouTube LIVE on Wednesday the 9th of December 2021 from 8:00pm (GMT+3) as they explore the dangers of totalizing narratives and hope to give recommendations to our viewers won what they can do regularly to advance gender equality as a human right.

Additional Information:

She is also a founding member and organizer/mobilizer at Feminists Conversations Kenya (@FeministConvoKe) which organizes around feminism and Social Justice in a bid to end patriarchal domination. (Check them out every Thursday for a tweet chat and Twitter space where we do political education around these issues) As a believer of co creating our feminist realities through creating safe spaces for women and gender minorities Martha advocates for Gender Justice through throwing herself fully into advocacy work. She insists that standing in solidarity with the most marginalized people calls for more than just theory, that we must also put our money where our mouth is and go into practice.

SOCIAL CONNECT

PART TWO: This DWD Podcast will feature host Diana Sifuna and guest Letoya Johnstone, a transgender woman and advocate of the transgender community. Letoya Johnstone is a diploma holder in social work, a transgender peer educator, a trainer of trainees (ToT) trained by a branch of Kenyan Ministry of Health, NASCOP (National AIDS and STI Control Programme), a trained HIV/AIDS counselling psychologist and a community champion for the Transgender community. Letoya notes that transgender persons are not intersex, and she will engage Diana in understanding the gender norms and the importance of inclusion of transgender persons in the healthcare system, public spaces, and in the census.

Join Diana and Letoya on YouTube LIVE on Tuesday the 30th of November 2021 from 8:00pm (GMT+3). Email us any questions you may have in advance as I engage Letoya in the understanding and support of gender diversity and transgender inclusion in equitable distribution of public service s and equality as a human rights aspect.

Additional Information:

Letoya Johnstone is the first person in Africa to be named Transgender Fashion Icon by BBC world because of her sharp eye for fashion and including the minorities and the Marginalized communities in the fashion scenes. Before Letoya Johnstone's tireless efforts, there were no models living with disability or LGBTQ+ included in the fashion industry, modelling and runway shows.

SOCIAL CONNECT

DWD Podcast

PART ONE: This DWD Podcast will feature host Diana Sifuna and guest Letoya Johnstone, a transgender woman and advocate of the transgender community. Letoya Johnstone is a diploma holder in social work, a transgender peer educator, a trainer of trainees (ToT) trained by a branch of Kenyan Ministry of Health, NASCOP (National AIDS and STI Control Programme), a trained HIV/AIDS counselling psychologist and a community champion for the Transgender community. Letoya notes that transgender persons are not intersex, and she will engage Diana in understanding the gender norms and the importance of inclusion of transgender persons in the healthcare system, public spaces, and in the census.

Join Diana and Letoya on YouTube LIVE on Tuesday the 30th of November 2021 from 8:00pm (GMT+3). Email us any questions you may have in advance as I engage Letoya in the understanding and support of gender diversity and transgender inclusion in equitable distribution of public service s and equality as a human rights aspect.

Additional Information:

Letoya Johnstone is the first person in Africa to be named Transgender Fashion Icon by BBC world because of her sharp eye for fashion and including the minorities and the Marginalized communities in the fashion scenes. Before Letoya Johnstone's tireless efforts, there were no models living with disability or LGBTQ+ included in the fashion industry, modelling and runway shows.

SOCIAL CONNECT

DWD Podcast

This week’s YouTube LIVE episode of Diversity With Diana Podcast will feature host Diana Sifuna and guest Dr. Simon Kigondu, a medical doctor specializing as an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist and is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr. Kigondu is a health advocate and the CEO of Excella Health Care, an obstetrics and gynecology's practice based at KMA Centre in Upper Hill, Nairobi. He currently serves as the Secretary-General of the Kenya Medical Association and a council member of Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists’ Union. In addition to this, he serves as a board director at Amnesty International Kenya.

Diana engages Dr, Kigondu in understanding the merit of inclusion in Kenya’s health care system and policy. Do all persons in Kenya of all diverse backgrounds have similar access to health care services without discrimination? We discuss this and more.

This week, host Diana Sifuna is joined in Studio by Wanjiku Kihika who is the Founder and Executive Director of Tribeless Youth as well a governance and arts advocate. We focus our discussion on Saba Saba, it's meaning and our collective duty as watchdogs that ensure that compliance with the constitution is upheld. Engage with us as we seek to explore alternative leadership options in our democracy.

Tribeless Youth initiative was established with the purpose of promoting peaceful coexistence among the youth in Kenya devoid of negative ethnicity or tribal lenses.  

Additional Info:  

Wanjiku is an undergraduate Public Relations student and concurrently pursuing a certificate in Gender and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Studies. She completed the transformational leadership training by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and another program on Place Based Leadership for Prevention of Urban Violence from University of Sunderland in partnership with the Danish Institute. Her impeccable track record has received recognition. She was first runners  up in the Diversity and Inclusion Awards (DIAR)  organized by the Daima Trust in Partnership with National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) as well as the Integrity Award by Kenya Civil Society Network. She is both a TedX (2019) and an Acumen fellow.  

This week’s podcast discusses the role of effective communication in Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) matters. Host Diana Sifuna is joined by Guest Evelyn Odhiambo in the conversation regarding crucial information dissemination among youths on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR).

Evelyn Odhiambo is the youth Coordinator at Reproductive Health Network Kenya (RHNK), a network of trained health care providers, who are passionate about ensuring provision of quality comprehensive reproductive health information and services. She is also a trained communications professional, with a diploma in public relations from the Cooperative University of Kenya. She is a final year student at the University of Nairobi pursuing a BA degree in Journalism and media studies.

At RHNK, she supports the management of the Hotline Nena Na Binti digital space for SRH awareness creation and information dissemination to stakeholders. Ms. Odhiambo is also the contact person for the SheDecides Kenya movement and SRHR trainer (Trainer4Life) with Dance4Life Foundation where she has empowered more than 1000 young people on SRHR. She is serving as a youth representative at the African Free of New HIV infections (AfNHi ) Committee.

In the conversation with her, we ask: 

1. How do most young people perceive SRH? 

2. What is most crucial in SRH Education? 

3. How can we do better when communicating about SRHR to both girls and boys?

As one of the youngest ever female political party leaders of a Kenyan Political Party Ms. Wilkister Aduma speaks to Ms. Diana Sifuna about her experience in Politics and Leadership.

Professionally, Ms. Aduma is the founder of an initiative called Run For Office, whose main objective is to encourage and support young people to run for office and lead while challenging the stereotype that young people run for public offices to seek clout and can not necessarily lead. She has over six years experience in political party administration. She served as the Executive Director of Labour Party of Kenya, the youngest person to hold such a political office at the time. Notably, the Labour Party of Kenya was able to partner with the Danish Youth League on a gender mainstreaming in politics programme, piloted in two counties in the country. In the 2017 elections, she was the Secretariat Head for the Thirdway Alliance Kenya.

Wilkister Aduma studied commerce at the University of Nairobi and is a consultant at Enigma Company Ltd, a company focusing on management consultancy serving private sector, government and civil society. Her area of expertise in consultancy is Youth Development, Youth-responsive policy formulation and technical advice in the same area.

DWD Host Diana is joined by Ebby Grace Weyime, the Founder & CEO of The Grace Cup and a thought leader when it comes to menstrual hygiene with a particular interest on re-usable products. Additionally, Ebby is also a popular African actress, a former model and a Menstrual Health Management Consultant.  

International Women’s Day, marked annually on March 8th, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. IWD also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women’s achievements or rally for women’s equality.  

The DWD podcast engages Ebby to discuss reproductive health rights for women and girls as well as menstrual health management (MHM). The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Choose To Challenge‘. A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change.   

This week Diana is joined by Richard Kakunga Wambua, a Pan-African Innovator and a Climate Diplomat. He serves as the Chairperson of the Young Diplomats of Kenya (YDK), where he has led teams to partner with International Organizations and Foreign Missions to advocate for youth inclusion and empowerment within the international affairs arena.

Among his numerable global recognitions, Richard is known for his contribution towards SDG 13 (Climate action), he was nominated to be a 2020 UNEP Young Champion of the Earth regional finalist for Africa. This is UNEP’s leading initiative to engage youth in tackling the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

The DWD podcast engages Richard as a young diplomat to debunk diplomacy and the myths around surrounding foreign aid & policies. We ask what he has observed on big-stick diplomacy, dollar diplomacy and moral diplomacy when engaging with the diplomatic communities & missions.  

This Week Diana is joined by Suzanne Silantoi, a public policy analyst & a graduate from University of York with a Master of Arts in Public Administration and Public Policy. Suzanne was the youngest Nairobi senatorial candidate in 2017 at the age of 23.

Women everywhere are breaking the glass ceiling in politics but their voices still go unheard and their contributions are too often sidelined. In many places women are still seen as incapable of taking on responsibility in what are perceived as male-oriented areas, such as finance, energy, economic development, climate change, foreign affairs, defense, trade and infrastructure. This is often the case in parliaments where women are given ‘women’s only’ portfolios or only allowed to sit in women committees and are being pushed away from the other committees because of their gender.

We ask, what was your experience as a young woman in politics and what lessons have you learnt in this maiden political journey

This Week Diana is joined by Noha Shawky, a seasoned visionary senior leader grounded on extensive 28 years of international experience on global and regional level in a variety of roles including General manager position, Global chief of staff, and Business Development. Noha a prominent creative and result driven leader thriving for innovation, helping and inspiring others, building partnerships and creating value to stakeholders. Many career women have had challenges with defining boundaries in the thought corporate world as well as the philanthropic world.

We ask, why is it important to celebrate the 2021 International Women's Day dubbed Women in Leadership and How do women leaders define boundaries them soar them up to success?

This week's the podcast show enlists common elements of diversity in our day to day official and unofficial engagements.

In the podcast, Diana lists: 

i) Cultural Integration 

ii) Nationality 

iii) Language 

iv) Sexual Orientation 

v) Social Class 

vi) Spirituality 

vii) Race 

viii) Gender 

ix) Mental Ability 

This week's the podcast show defines DIVERSITY for all people including KIDS. 

This week's the podcast show highlights the contributions made by the host Diana Sifuna in the Youth Status Conversation hosted online by the Kenya Young Members of County Assembly (KYMCA)