Kenya

How the Oscars changed the life of a Kenyan woman

Kenyan fashion designer Nthenya Mwendwa is in Los Angeles with the aim of getting her luxury bags worn and photographed on the Oscars red carpet. Mwendwa's bags are available for celebrities to take from a so-called "gifting suite". At

I went into debt, trying to secure a miracle

Evarline Okello breaks down in tears as she tells me she is hundreds of dollars in debt, after paying a pastor to pray for her. She lives in a tiny shack in Kibera, a vast slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and can no longer provide

I saved an elephant from drowning

The river was deep and unpredictable, and infested with crocodiles I live in Samburu, in northern Kenya, but I was raised even farther north, on the border of Ethiopia. Where I grew up, there were elephants living in the wild. I was

The sand doodler who conquered her Somali Islamic critics

Nujuum Hashi, who has overcome traditional prejudice to become a respected artist in Somalia, decided on her career as she drew pictures in the sand as a seven-year-old in the capital, Mogadishu. Her family had no fixed abode as this