Paukwa? Pakawa!
Paukwa is a place dedicated to positive stories about Kenya. Our story house is named for the Swahili word that is an invitation to a story – Paukwa. It’s an age- old term, well known across East Africa. Paukwa invites one to remember the joy of stories from their childhood days and to get lost in new, familiar or unknown ideas about the daily things that surround us.
Each day ordinary Kenyans are pushing our nation forward. As volunteers, as SME owners, as creatives, teachers, farmers, counsellors, techwizards and more. There is a bigger story as they build our nation each day through their tenacity, hard work, positive attitude, search for excellence, and sheer hustle.
Through their efforts we all grow.
At Paukwa, we shine a spotlight on the everyday builders of our nation and the history we almost forgot.
This digital storybank celebrates memory, culture, modernity, but most of all, the positive. Dive in and discover a story of Kenya you didn’t know you never knew!
Paukwa? Pakawa!
Paukwa is a place dedicated to positive stories about Kenya. Our story house is named for the Swahili word that is an invitation to a story – Paukwa. It’s an age- old term, well known across East Africa. Paukwa invites one to remember the joy of stories from their childhood days and to get lost in new, familiar or unknown ideas about the daily things that surround us.
Each day ordinary Kenyans are pushing our nation forward. As volunteers, as SME owners, as creatives, teachers, farmers, counsellors, techwizards and more. There is a bigger story as they build our nation each day through their tenacity, hard work, positive attitude, search for excellence, and sheer hustle.
Through their efforts we all grow.
At Paukwa, we shine a spotlight on the everyday builders of our nation and the history we almost forgot.
This digital storybank celebrates memory, culture, modernity, but most of all, the positive. Dive in and discover a story of Kenya you didn’t know you never knew!
#KeMinerals
Question: what comes to mind when you think of minerals? Is it the various tools, equipment, and heavy machinery that is required to dig into the earth to find those substances and gems buried deep within the earth’s crust? Or is it the outcome: the gold and silver jewellery, the powder-like substances etc? We have been thinking about minerals and wondered how wealthy our land is. True enough, we have heard
Remember the story of...
Construction Of The Railway: Navigating Nairobi
In the 19th century, Nairobi was simply a vast swampy plain on which the Maasai grazed their cattle and wildlife roamed freely. The winds of change began to blow in the 1890s with the arrival of the first Europeans. Here, they settled temporarily in camps before donning their adventurous cloaks and exploring further inland. Others noticed Nairobi’s already growing population, took a keen interest in the region’s commercial potential, and...
Our audio stories
A note from our team
ON GRATITUDE
Allow us to take a moment of reflection. We are grateful for the journey of time, for the learnings we have experienced about our country as we have spent time in archives, in interviews, on bumpy roads crisscrossing the nation, in online rabbit holes in our quest to build stories of Kenya. We are incredibly grateful for the community of readers we have and all the feedback, thumbs up, questions and exclamations that you have shared. We have enjoyed spending time in new spaces bringing our story collections alive in forums, on panels, in festivals and in virtual settings. Through each of these endeavours we are continually sharpened by others, we have found our tribe of individuals and collectives as curious as we are about our history, and we are comforted and emboldened by the reminders that we are not alone on our quest and indeed – this work of narrative shaping, of history building, of spotlight shining is important. With reflection comes gratitude, introspection, and hope and so we thank you for being part of our Paukwa journey.
TEAM PAUKWA
A note from our team
WOMEN WE ARE INSPIRED BY
Celebrating the achievements of women in all spheres has been one of our key focuses. The word celebrate comes from the Latin word celebrare meaning to assemble and honour. Gathering is core to the etymology of the word celebration. It means celebrating women must include meaningfully cultivating spaces to acknowledge and honour each other. The poignancy of this kind of fellowship has not been lost on us. At Paukwa, it has meant reflecting on journeys of that show the complexity of life that is so fulfilling when one stays the course. The awe-inspiring tenacity and unbridled excellence of Kenyan women quite simply demand celebration as we have shown in out collection of #KeFemaleFirsts. We commit to holding space to recognise, embrace and speak life from the phenomenal women that inspire us.
TEAM PAUKWA
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