Speaking Freely: Winnie Kabintie

Winnie Kabintie is a journalist and Communications Specialist based in Nairobi, Kenya. As an award-winning youth media advocate, she is passionate about empowering young people with Media and Information Literacy skills, enabling them to critically engage with and shape the evolving digital  media landscape in meaningful ways.

Greene: To get us started, can you tell us what the term free expression means to you? 

I think it's the opportunity to speak in a language that you understand and speak about subjects of concern to you and to anybody who is affected or influenced by the subject of conversation. To me, it is the ability to communicate openly and share ideas or information without interference, control, or restrictions. 

As a journalist, it means having the freedom to report on matters affecting society and my work without censorship or limitations on where that information can be shared. Beyond individual expression, it is also about empowering communities to voice their concerns and highlight issues that impact their lives. Additionally, access to information is a vital component of freedom of expression, as it ensures people can make informed decisions and engage meaningfully in societal discourse because knowledge is power.

Greene: You mention the freedom to speak and to receive information in your language. How do you see that currently? Are language differences a big obstacle that you see currently? 

If I just look at my society—I like to contextualize things—we have Swahili, which is a national language, and we have English as the secondary official language. But when it comes to policies, when it comes to public engagement, we only see this happening in documents that are only written in English. This means when it comes to the public barazas (community gatherings) interpretation is led by a few individuals, which creates room for disinformation and misinformation. I believe the language barrier is an obstacle to freedom of speech. We've also seen it from the civil society dynamics, where you're going to engage the community but you don't speak the same language as them, then it becomes very difficult for you to engage them on the subject at hand. And if you have to use a translator, sometimes what happens is you're probably using a translator for whom their only advantage, or rather the only advantage they bring to the table, is the fact that they understand different languages. But they're not experts in the topic that you're discussing.

Greene: Why do you think the government only produces materials in English? Do you think part of that is because they want to limit who is able to understand them? Or is it just, are they lazy or they just disregard the other languages? 

In all fairness, I think it comes from the systematic approach on how things run. This has been the way of doing things, and it's easier to do it because translating some words from, for example, English to Swahili is very hard. And you see, as much as we speak Swahili in Kenya—and it's our national language—the kind of Swahili we speak is also very diluted or corrupted with English and Sheng—I like to call “ki-shenglish”. I know there were attempts to translate the new Kenyan Constitution, and they did translate some bits of the summarized copy, but even then it wasn’t the full Constitution. We don't even know how to say certain words in Swahili from English which makes it difficult to translate many things. So I think it's just an innocent omission. 

Greene: What makes you passionate about freedom of expression?

 As a journalist and youth media advocate, my passion for freedom of expression stems from its fundamental role in empowering individuals and communities to share their stories, voice their concerns, and drive meaningful change. Freedom of expression is not just about the right to speak—it’s about the ability to question, to challenge injustices, and to contribute to shaping a better society.

For me, freedom of expression is deeply personal as I like to question, interrogate and I am not just content with the status quo. As a journalist, I rely on this freedom to shed light on critical issues affecting society, to amplify marginalized voices, and to hold power to account. As a youth advocate, I’ve witnessed how freedom of expression enables young people to challenge stereotypes, demand accountability, and actively participate in shaping their future. We saw this during the recent Gen Z revolution in Kenya when youth took to the streets to reject the proposed Finance Bill.

Freedom of speech is also about access. It matters to me that people not only have the ability to speak freely, but also have the platforms to articula