One-on-one with Jackline Lidubwi: Why everyone should be heard

From a young age, Jackline Lidubwi had a strong desire to be a ‘person who makes a difference in society.’

If you have watched the KBC programme Abled Differently, then you have likely witnessed the efforts Lidubwi has made—and continues to make—to bring about the social change she desires.

Lidubwi, who currently works at Internews, uses her more than 20 years of media expertise to train and teach other media professionals.

She also collaborates with Earth Journalism Network to combat climate change and air pollution and create a sustainable society.

In this interview with the Star, Lidubwi discusses her life, her enthusiasm to be a voice for those who are marginalised in society, and the significance of this year's International Women's Day theme, "Inspire Inclusion."

Aside from the media training and disability activism that you do, how do you describe Jackline Lidubwi?

Jackline Lidubwi is humble, down to earth, loves people, loves helping the community and she is just grateful for how far she has come and how far she is going.

Jackline is also an assertive person, humble but assertive, some people confuse it with being tough.

How do you think that your upbringing influenced the person you are today?

I was brought up in a humble background, in some village in Chavakali, Vihiga County. Even though I came from a humble background, my parents were working so we were able to afford all the meals, and my school fees were paid.

But the people who lived in the community around us were struggling. Some of them didn’t have working parents and some of them had parents who were struggling with alcoholism.

I grew up observing and thinking about how I can make a difference in the community, knowing where I come from. I pushed to become someone whom people can look up to.

That was my goal, I wanted to influence my community positively.

Where do you draw your passion for people with disabilities?

I wanted to become someone who makes a difference in people’s lives, especially those who are marginalised and disadvantaged.

The passion came as a coincidence when I was at KBC, doing human interest feature stories and programmes. In one of my programmes, I interviewed People with disabilities but when they came on the show, I found that they were lawyers and professors. And I was thinking the picture I see in the media of People with disabilities are people who are beggars, children who have been forgotten and don't go to school.

When I saw that, I thought I could do a show so that I could give people with disabilities a platform and change the narrative of disability.

I wanted those parents who have children with disabilities to look at these other people with disabilities who have made it in life, and then they can also encourage their children to go to school. The show would inspire other people with disabilities.

The deeper I went into disability movement and reporting, the more I met people who inspired me and then I just felt at home.

I felt like I was making a difference because people with disabilities were becoming presenters of the Abled Differently Show.

That meant that they had a platform where they could air their success, their plights, and their challenges. That made me happier and it made me feel excited that I've done something in the society that has made a difference.

So it was just a coincidence because as a journalist, I wanted to be a journalist, that makes a difference and Abled Differently Show was my contribution to that.

Having left KBC, are you still involved with the ‘Abled Differently Show’ or did you leave everything when you left?

When I work with people, I love empowering them and teaching them everything I know. So, by the time I left KBC so many reporters and even my production assistant knew how to handle the show even without me.

I have that thing in me where I want to give out everything that I know to people so that even when I die, I die empty.

Abled Differently is still there. When I have a training session, I invite the Abled Differently crew. When I have people who want a platform, I will refer them to Abled Differently.

When I have resources to share or when I have new knowledge, I always contact the team and also other journalists in Kenya who have taught disability reporting, I share with them through a WhatsApp group that we have.

Why do you think journalists should be trained in disability reporting?

Journalists know very well that no unit or course in university teaches disability reporting. So how we report disability is according to how we view disability in the traditional models.

These traditional models are things like; people with disability are people who need pity, people who have not gone to school, people who are cursed.

Like, if I get a child with a disability right now, I'll be thinking, oh, what did I do wrong to my grandparents or my forefathers or the gods so that I've been punished? Those are the models with which we view disability.

As a journalist, you are a human being, you exist in a society. So, when you go to the media house and you encounter a story of disability, taking into account the views you've grown up with, it will influence the stories that you will tell. You will still be doing stories of pity.

It also took me some time to learn how to tell the right stories about people with disabilities. They have no difference to everyone; they just have a disability and that’s it.

I think it is important for me to teach other journalists and also to empower journalists to use the right terminologies because language empowers and language can disempower. When you call someone disabled kiwete, it is like saying that they are useless.

But if you say a person with a disability, you are seeing the person first, then the disability. That empowers that person. It is powerful because even if you walk to a job opportunity and someone sees you as a person will get an opportunity, but if someone sees you as a thing, they will not give you an opportunity.

That's why it is important to use the right terminology, to tell stories with positive portrayals of disability, and also to demystify the myths and stereotypes that surround people with disability.

In the media today, there are also very few stories done about people with disability and sometimes when they are told, it is probably on World Autism Day, World Down Syndrome Day or World Disability Day.

When I teach disability reporting, I tell journalists of the need to mainstream disability in reporting and to do it in the right way so that we can change the narrative and perception of disability in our society today.

Tell me about the dream that influenced you to pursue a career in media

I have been a very prayerful person since I was a child. Sometimes I would even pray and see visions. I joke with my friends telling them that if I spend more time praying, I would be a prophet.

That night I prayed then I slept and, in the dream, I saw the radio studios and I was with all these broadcasters that I love; John Karani, Nzau Kalulu and Eunia Amunga. We were on the machines and we were recording.

Growing up in the village in the late 90s, I used to listen to the radio so much but I had no idea how people get to the radio. Right now, we have visual radio and it is easy to see the presenters but back then you had to behave well so your parents could give you the radio maybe on a Saturday night, so you could listen to KBC probably to the music and you would write down lyrics and send to your boyfriend. That is how we grew up.

In my village, I didn’t know anyone who had gone to communication school or was a broadcaster.

The following day after I had that dream, my mother met our former board chairperson in high school. He is the one who told her about a school in mass communication and he is the one who said I could be a good journalist because I was performing well in school.

The meeting coincided with the dream and that is when I started looking up how I can get to KIMC and the rest, as they say, is history.

How does it feel to be awarded and recognised for the work that you do out of passion?

The first award I got was after I did a story on Female Genital Mutilation in Kajiado County. I was the very first person to feature a woman who was a chief and she had rehabilitated so many children in Kajiado.

She had taken them to school and prevented them from getting into early marriages and FGM. She became a chief after we did the story and she even called us to tell us about it.

After our story, many other stories have been told about her and she has grown her institution and achieved so many things including empowering many other women. I did the story in 2013 when I was producing the Taj Show and it was the story that won me my first award.

I was so happy to win that award because I knew that as a journalist, the one mark that makes a good journalist is receiving an award for your work.

After that, I received so many awards that it became usual. But I remember how I felt after receiving the very first award, I felt good and special, grateful, known and acknowledged. Awards can also cement you as a journalist and build your name.

Why is it important for you to always give back to society?

It goes back to my upbringing and my beliefs. Also growing up I loved Mother Teresa and everything she did so I just wanted to be a small Mother Teresa. In my small way, every year, I try to be a Mother Teresa here and there.

I wanted to become a teacher but I didn’t manage so I got a housegirl who had scored a B. She had schooled with a bursary at Bunyore National School and after that, she didn’t have anything to do.

She came to work for me and she was good to my kids after some time we got someone who connected us to Kagumo TTC and we got an admission letter and she joined.

Right now, she is a teacher at Ruaraka High School and she has helped her family, build them a good house which makes me happy and proud. Right now, if you meet her, you would never know that she was ever a housegirl.

It makes me happy to know that I have changed the life of one girl who went on to change the community. When you empower one girl, you empower the whole community.

I believe that education is an equaliser and if I can give that to society then I believe that I am doing my part to give back to society. Having so many uneducated people is a burden because education makes people self-reliant.

I love changing lives because it makes me happy and it changes the lives of those I interact with. I believe in giving so that we can make the world a better place.

Tell me about what you do at Earth Journalism Network

Currently, I am the project coordinator for the Clean Air Catalyst where we are giving journalists the skills and tools to report on air pollution. It is an underreported subject even though it affects so many people.

Air pollution affects us in so many ways, reports have been written and scientists have said that miscarriages, stunted growth, diabetes, lung cancer and many more diseases are caused by air pollution. But because we can't see air, then we don’t know.

Air is important because the first thing you do when you are born is to breathe in the air, but it is neglected in most countries including ours.

For example, we have the Ministry of Water, because water is important. We have the Ministry of Agriculture because as human beings, we need food, air and water to survive but we don’t have the Ministry of Air. It is just placed under the environment and it is also underreported.

The air that we breathe is so polluted. For example, the World Health Organisation standard for pollution is PM2.5 but in Nairobi, there are times it gets twice or three times worse than the recommended standard.

Journalists need to be taught about the sources and impacts of air pollution and the possible solutions so that they can report stories that change the community and how we view air pollution.

What are you doing in the space you are in as Jackline to ‘Inspire Inclusion’ in line with the International Women’s Day theme 2024?

When we talk about the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, I like to think that that is what my life has been about. To include. I like a world where all of us are equal.

When we talk about people, we give equal opportunities for men, women, people with disabilities, sexual minorities and everyone because all of us have an equal opportunity to live in this world.

I love this poem called Desiderata which says ‘Listen to everyone, the dull and the innocent, they too have their story’. Don’t just listen to the politicians, the talkative and the rich, as a journalist, we have to listen to everyone’s story. Get the three sides of the story and include everyone in the stories.

The 2024 International Women's Day theme, "Inspire Inclusion," is in alignment with Lidubwi's life mission which is to make a change in society by making sure that even the marginalised are heard.