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| Look at all the side notes I took as I facilitated this session - June 2025 |
Good evening, friends,
I wore my teaching hat this afternoon and led a 2-hour session on campaigns and creative advocacy strategies. My audience was the current cohort of the Aspen Institute's Impact West Africa Fellowship. Most of the participants were francophone, but thanks to interpretation technology, I did not need to rely on my high school French.
The session drew heavily from my experience using digital advocacy and storytelling across different platforms and contexts.
Over the years, this has included:
- Building one of Africa’s early mental health blogs rooted in lived experience and awareness creation
- Leading the #PurpleDayKenya epilepsy awareness campaign, which mobilized online communities and turned Twitter/X purple across Kenya
- Running early mental health hashtag campaigns such as #mymindmyfunk and #mhke
- Producing and hosting a seasonal mental health podcast centering African voices and lived experience
Alongside digital work, I have also worked on in-person and community-based advocacy, including:
- Serving as logistics lead in the #JusticeForLiz GBV advocacy campaign in Kenya
- Designing and facilitating the Akili ni Mali storytelling tour across Kenya and Nigeria
- Leading pan-African mental health advocacy training for over 30 changemakers across 8 countries
Yes, I just dropped my CV, if anyone needs me to facilitate a workshop or two, a girl is prepared. I am also building a health promotion agency that provides operations and health comms support to lean teams in the health and wellness space (how many times did I say health?)...if you know someone who is looking for someone, I am shooting my shot.
Back to the training
It was hard to squeeze all the layers of these experiences into a 2-hour session, so I turned the session into a workshop format.
- We started with African case studies, looking at #JusticeForLiz, #EndSARS, #BringBackOurGirls, and #Kony2012.
- We then explored how advocacy shows up across different mediums, including TikTok, Twitter/X, podcasts, WhatsApp, visual art, street performance, and other creative forms.
- Finally, we workshopped campaign ideas. Fellows identified the social issues they are working on and the audiences they are trying to reach, then developed “tiny, tangible, and theatrical” interventions for change.
Because of time constraints, it was more of a high-level sprint than a deep dive, and we did not get to structured peer review, which would have helped further refine their ideas.
As we closed the session, I spoke about personal sustainability and wellbeing as a core part of any campaign or advocacy work. I asked them not to do everything alone. To look for collaborators and to rest...the world will continue with or without us.
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