our roots

ugh
Does writing
pay the bills?
By Wandia Njoya
a thorough review of the music
program, and plans are now in place
to overhaul the program so as to train
students who want to pursue careers
in music and sound production, film
scoring, performance and recording.
The department has also facilitated
students to attend Jazz masterclasses
with Jonathan Butler and other
international guest artists performing
at the Safaricom Jazz Festival, and had
taught a class on hip hop and the Old
Testament, in order to help students
bring their faith to have an influence on
the performing arts.
The School is headed by the Dean,
Prof Levi Obonyo, an outstanding media
scholar who also serves as a director
of the Communications Authority of
Kenya and who was the previous chair
of the Media Council. The Department
of Communication is headed by Dr.
Rosemary Kowuor, assisted by Sr. Dr.
AL A Lando, while the Department of
Language and Performing Arts is headed
by Dr. Wandia Njoya.
Creatives Academy is a groundbreaking
workshop class, the first
of its kind offered by a Kenyan
university, where students get to interact
with various people from industries that
interact with writing. Each week, students
get to listen to discussions involving
different players in the industry, from
fiction writers, to editors, to publishers, to
film makers, to journalists and lawyers.
One reason why the Department of
Language and Performing Arts launched
this class in 2014 was to respond to
criticism that studying language is
irrelevant and unmarketable, and also
to respond to the public cry for students
who interact with the industry, and are
not just bookworms without practical
knowledge.
Most of all, we also made the class as
a service to society by opening it up to
members of the public.
Naturally, the question of whether
writing pays the bills has dominated the
discussions. One participant, Dennis
Ndavi, put it best when he asked: “Long
ago, music was considered a useless
pursuit in Kenya. Now we have musicians
who are millionaires. So why have our
writers not become rock stars?”
At each session, the answer has been
different. With veteran writers Henry ole
Kulet and 88-year old Muthoni Likimani,
the answer was that one has to write
because they have something to say,
not to become rich, because money may
or may not follow. At another session,
the writers said that writing pays all the
bills, or some of the bills, or opens up
opportunities that pay the bills. That day
was probably the most popular among
the ladies, because the panel consisted
of arguably the coolest men in writing
today: Oyunga Pala, Jackson Biko, Chris
Lyimo and Mwalimu Andrew.
But most importantly, we also learned
that writing is also about helping society.
That lesson came from the discussion
with cancer survivor Doris Mayoli,
rape survivor and mental health writer
Sitawa Wafula, and motivational speaker
Bonnie Kim. Wafula, for instance, has
now become the go-to person for many
people struggling with mental disorders,
all because she wrote about her
experience. Doris Mayoli told the class
that when she started writing, no Kenyan
was talking publicly about their cancer
treatment. Her book has encouraged
many others going through the same
experience to come out and openly share
their stories.
Besides these gems we learn about
writing, Creatives Academy has also been
an opportunity to train public relations
interns in event organizing and managing
social media. Because this class is largely
promoted online, our interns have
acquired practical skills in promoting
media events, scheduling tweets, writing
Facebook posts and taking photographs
of events.
So does writing pay the bills? It does,
for journalists, script writers, lawyers,
teachers, preachers, and many other
professionals. Writing also opens the
door to opportunities. Barack Obama
became president partly because he had
exposed his life to the world through
writing. Our faith comes from hearing
God’s word, written and translated by
human beings. So more important than
the money is the impact that writing has
on people’s lives.
DaystarConnect 2015 • 21