How I Found My Career Path and Forged Lifelong Friendships

9 years ago
Read Time:2minutes
by LolaKenyaScreen.Org
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By Daisy Nandeche Okoti

I can competitively work with any professional journalist in any media house in the world and hold my own, thanks to the intense training and mentorship I received from Lola Kenya Screen.

I joined Lola Kenya Screen at 17. Little did I know that I had set myself on the path that would define my future career. Today, six years later, the impact Lola Kenya Screen has had in my life is insurmountable.

Lola Kenya Screen enabled me to connect the line between the course–Literature and Sociology with a Communication minor—I studied in university to the real needs at the workplace and life in general.

The critical writing workshop that marked my first contact with Lola Kenya Screen influenced my thinking in all spheres of my life: from the way I interact with my friends and situations in life to my academic work and all the other assignments that I have undertaken. The injection of critical thinking through Lola Kenya Screen opened my eyes to what I really wanted to do in university.

Lola Kenya Screen also opened my mind to things such as our cultures, film, fine arts, the mass media and the role of these art-forms in society.

Without discrimination, Lola Kenya Screen brings together children and youth of all background and colour from across Kenya as well as the greater East Africa and the world. When I first attended the programme in 2010, I was the only participant from western part of the country but the environment was very welcoming and accommodating; I met other children with similar interests as I had and apart from learning and sharpening our brains together, I forged some of my lifelong friendships that continue to be useful even as I lay firm grounds for the construction of my career path today.

I really didn’t leave Lola Kenya Screen after joining its mentorship in 2010. How so?

I was also privileged to do the internship in creative and cultural entrepreneurship that Lola Kenya Screen offers to final year university students in eastern Africa; the experience exposed me to many critical areas of training in different parts of Africa.

Yes, I have been well trained in cultural journalism, film writing, film production, event management, manuscript evaluation and arts criticism both in Kenya and abroad. This is much more than I had expected.

If Lola Kenya Screen were to be removed from the story of my life, I probably would have no career. Yes, LKS picked me up from the dust, cleaned me up and put in me all the writing skills and techniques that I know today.

Lola Kenya Screen is a great training platform that should be supported to continue impacting the lives of many more young people in Kenya in particular and Africa in general.

Lola Kenya Screen offers 8-16-week internship to final year university students in Media and Information Literacy, Creative writing, Cultural Journalism, Critical Appreciation of Creativity, Event Planning and Presentation, Movie Production, Graphic Design and Website Development.Eligible are students of Media, Information, Communication, Journalism, Mass Communication, TV/Video Production, Visual Communication, Advertising, Literature and related areas.

critical thinking critical writing workshop event management film production film writing Literature and Sociology Lola Kenya Screen manuscript evaluation and arts criticism trained in cultural journalism