Over the past decade, social cash transfers have become a vital lifeline for the country’s most vulnerable people. As the government promises to increase the number of people benefitting from social protection, elderly people in Kuria West are already feeling the impact of the cash transfers. One of the beneficiaries is 77-year-old Shadrack Muroa Gibichai.

If you do something that comes from the heart, you’ll not feel like you are working. I involve my children in my work. That way, they learn what I do and we spend quality time together. Veye Tatah ...

The Kenyan general elections were held on 4 March 2013. It was the first time that elections were held under a new constitution that was promulgated in 2010, and the first time that the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission (IEBC) used a large scale electronic voting system. Right from the nominations, questions had already emerged regarding the fairness of the elections.

On a warm and dry morning, a group of labourers gather at the home of Neddy Khalayi in Waitaluk, Trans Nzoia district. The women enter the maize store to stuff maize cobs into gunny sacks. Young, muscular men carry the filled sacks out to a waiting tractor. They pour the maize into the shelling machine and then carry the grain to dry on large canvas mats laid out under the open blue sky.

On 29-30 April 2017, 24 bakers from Naivas stores in greater Nairobi were trained on using orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) puree for bakery applications. The training, held in the Naivas Kitengela branch, was organized by Tawanda Muzhingi, a food scientist at the International Potato Center (CIP), and Antonio Magnaghi a product development specialist and proprietor of Euro-Ingredients Limited.

As the world marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance against FGM tomorrow, this goal seems a long way off for girls in Kuria. Last December saw a spike in FGM cases in the region, with as many as 500 to 800 girls being cut every day - See more at: http://the-star.co.ke/news/fgm-alive-and-well-kuria#sthash.0adDF3qP.dpuf

On a smallholder farm in Trans Nzoia County, a large, brown cow has just brought her young calf into the world. It was a quick affair, assisted by two young cowhands. On hand to advice them is a neighbour, who is a vet technician by profession. The three are proud of the healthy addition to the farm’s stock, and if they had their way, they would probably call the calf Origi, Di Maria or Emenike.

Dr Beryl Onyango, a clinical pharmacist at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, explains how one can get lighter, even skin tone without putting one’s health at risk. The colour of your skin is determined by various biochemical and cellular processes. Stick to the basics. Eat a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

Lupita Nyong’o recently made waves at home and abroad — not only for her stellar performance in the film 12 Years a Slave, but also for the moving speech she made on black beauty during the annual Black Women in Hollywood luncheon that is hosted by Essence magazine. Even as she affirms that beauty comes in any shade, the reality looks different.

With the changing weather patterns, maize diseases and the high cost of production, cassava could just be the answer to Kenya's food insecurity. “For me, cassava represents food, a source of income and a way of life,” says Peter Atanga, a 42-year-old man from the North West highlands of Cameroon. He is just in the process of measuring a basin of gari (also Garri or tapioca), one of the many ways that cassava is processed for value addition and storage purposes in Central and West Africa.

Milton Zelman, publisher of "Chocolate News" said, “Giving chocolate to others is an intimate form of communication, a sharing of deep, dark secrets.”. But this dark, delicious treat has its dark side, characterised by an unequal supply chain, in which consumers enjoy the final product and make the manufacturers rich in the process, while the agricultural producers get the short end of the stick.

There is too much negative coverage of migrants, either as criminals or people who only depend on the social system.... read more.

The early morning sun penetrates the thick canopy of trees lightly, revealing long pathways and shaded alcoves of the old cemetery. At the front entrance, an old woman walks with a stoop to the dispenser and buys a candle before proceeding to an elaborately marked grave. A young fitness enthusiast jogs through the trees, earphones plugged into her ears turning her completely oblivious to the buzzing and chirping sounds of insects and birds.

 It is just over three months since the tightly contested elections that saw Uhuru Kenyatta declared the fourth President of the Republic of Kenya. As the dust settles down on a stormy and tumultuous polling period, three women, representing the proverbial Wanjiku living in the Diaspora, weigh in on their feelings, hopes and fears, living with an outcome of a future that they did not actively take part in making.

In old age, one often looks back at the past. This reflection about previous experiences has an influence on emotional health. Simona Furlani has been the creative director of Erinnerungstheater in Bonn. Here, the elderly actors get an opportunity to integrate elements of their life’s experiences into theatre pieces. For them, theatre is not only a hobby, it is also a kind of therapy. (In German)

Not many people would freely admit to have been nicknamed after a pig when they were growing up. But then, Veye Tatah (41) is not like many people. She is a straight talking, confident and successful entrepreneur who has established two business enterprises and a not-for-profit organisation from the ground up. And the pig in question is no ordinary pig, it is Snowball.