Nicholas Songora is a passionate activist with several years’ experience as a creative arts director and human rights defender with a background in Development Studies. He has been involved in the promotion of social change for better service delivery, accountability, peacebuilding, and conflict management in the coastal region of Kenya. He is the Founding Director of Manyatta Youth Entertainment CBO-MAYE– an Arts for Social Change non-profit which is youth-led and grounded in human rights principles, active in the coastal counties of Kenya. MAYE has been involved in the areas of social accountability, civic education, and social justice using creative Arts, innovation, and technology as a mode of communication. It is through MAYE that he addresses concerns revolving around gender-based violence, violent extremism, and armed juvenile crime. He is a founder of ANIKA Community Media; an online audio-visual media platform managed by young people. Here they focus on sharing the untold stories within the community such as narratives on social accountability and highlighting emerging leaders’ struggles and success stories.

“We shall live to celebrate sustainable development goal attainment the moment we shift from seeing young people as either culprit and or victims to possible agents of change. Let the oppressed and marginalized groups within the communities take a lead role in influencing change.”