Citizen Reporter

There is a force referred to as development that has arrived in Northern Kenya. It brings highways, wind farms, pipelines, cables, standardized education, and new towns where the government wants people to live and work. What it also brings is pollution, inequality, disappearing cultures and languages, an end to nomadic lifestyles that have existed for hundreds of years. While all this is happening, extreme weather has also arrived, taking people who have long known how to live in balance with the environment and thrusting them into the uncertainty and destruction climate change leaves in its wake.
Amidst all this struggle there is also hope. Communities have become aware of what development can do to them. They have become concious of the need to preserve knowledge and restore culture. And this is all being done not in isolation, but through sharing of experiences and strategies with communities facing the same circumstances throughout the continent and the world.
My guest today, Jillo Katelo of the Kivulini Trust, speaks of a childhood where there was balance and joy in his community. Only to be replaced nowadays by an erosion of that way of life as it increasingly under attack in the name of development and so-called economic progress. But the story doesn’t end here, listen in as Jillo talks about his home, how it is changed, and what he is doing empower communities and challenge the modern-day religion that places profit margins above humanity.

Links:

• V4C
• Kivulini Trust

Fiona Krakenbürger knows her home town of Berlin under normal circumstances and now knows it during Covid19 times. Whats the difference? Today on the podcast we get into Berlin over the past weeks as well as uncovering what has been going on in DC over the past months (for her). Along the way we talk about Planet Money, sourdough, serious concerns for at-risk groups, hackerspaces, ultimate frisbee, and home office politics. Very pleased to have this podcast with Fiona to share with all of you. Have a listen!

• OctopusCitizen on Twitter
• Heart of Code
• Open Technology Fund
• Herman the German Friendship Cake

For decades Wim Kruiswijk has lived on the Dutch coast walking the beach before people arrive and after they have left. His treasure: messages in bottles. Over the years he has collected thousands, and turned beach combing into meaninful friendships. He’s also become extremely knowledgeable about why people write messages and bottles, as well as what else is happenning to the environment along the coast. Today on the podcast, in assocation with the For Keeps podcast, we pay a visit to Wim Kruiswijk to learn about his incredible experiences with messages in bottles.

Ask Katherine Maher to describe the Beirut that she loves and you get stories of a place that sounds like Brooklyn, Berlin, London and Rio de Janeiro crumpled up and dropped onto the map in a region filled with anxiety, trauma, and uncertain futures. A place where life is lived to the fullest, by day and by night. And if you want art, you’ve come to the right place.

On one fine October afternoon in Amsterdam, Katherine sat down with me to tell me of Beirut and the things a visiting journalist seeking storytellers and artists should keep in mind along the way.

“Now is a very interesting time... there is an incredible level of activity and activism among civil society that I have not seen in any comparative form in the last ten years.”