Role model?

Who is a role model? The oxford advanced learners dictionary describes a role model as “a person that you admire and try to copy”. The business dictionary goes ahead to break down the term as “an individual who is looked up to and revered by someone else. A role model is someone who other individuals aspire to be like, either in the present or in the future. A role model may be someone who you know and interact with on a regular basis, or may be someone who you've never met, such as a celebrity. Common role models include well known actors, public figures such as police men or political officials, teachers or other educators, and parents or other family members”.

So we view/see/study other people’s behavior and then behave like them. In our Kenyan context who are our role models?  Who do we want to emulate? Who can we point out among us and say they have behaved in a manner worth replicating? So I tried to figure this out by checking out who are the most celebrated in our society.

Like I had written in the article the trouble with Masaku 7’s we are obsessed with media personalities, artists (especially those we have deemed to have made it), and politicians. Interestingly, our sports personalities partially fall in this category but in a “weird” way. Today if I randomly asked who won the last Boston or Standard Chartered marathon last year most people will make a wild guess and get it wrong. We will not know who made our flag fly high and made us want to cry with patriotic pride when the national anthem was played for the umpteenth time. It is normally a fleeting moment we move on extremely fast. As for the fanatic following of our rugby tournaments and Gor Mahia football club I cannot tell whether it’s for the love of the game, the players or the hype behind them.

To try and understand who interests our psyche as a nation, I started by checking the most Googled persons by Kenyans in the year 2014. 
1. Vera Sidika-(Kenyan:-Socialite).
2. The late Otieno Kajwang-(Kenyan:-Politician). 
3. Angel Di Maria-(Argentinian:-Footballer). 
4. Dr. Myles Munroe-(American:-Evangelist,motivation speaker and author). 
5. The late Robin Williams-(American:-Actor). 
6. Juan Mata-(Spanish:-footballer). 
7. Betty Bayo-(Kenyan:-Singer)(Wife-enstranged?- to Victor Kanyari who made number 10 on this list). 
8. Joan Rivers-(American:- actress, comedian, writer, producer, and television host). 
9. Arturo Vidal-(Chilean:-footballer). 
10. Victor Kanyari –(Kenyan:-pastor).

 

My next stop was an analysis of True love magazine one of the leading Kenyan magazines in terms of readership. I personally read the magazine because of various reasons. One, I admire Carole Mandi’s illustrious career. Two, because of the mix of articles therein. Three, I am slowly becoming my mum who read Drum magazine in her younger years. And lastly, am accepting some of the information they give is age appropriate for me. I sought out to see who have graced their cover page for the last one year (August  2014- August  2015) :-

August-        Sarah K

July-            Edith Kimani

June-           Lulu Hassan & Rashid Abdalla

May-            Esther Wahome

April –          Ray C

March-        Victoria Rubadiri

February-    The Kiunas (Cathy Kiuna & Bishop)

January-      Jemima Thion’go

December-   Nancy Kacungira

November-   Ruth Matete

October-     (A comination of Sarah Hassan, Shiks Kapienga, Enid, Sharon Mundia     and Victoria Kimani.

September-  Grace Msalame

August-        Alice Kamande & Eunice Njeri

I went backwards about a year after that and guess what? All the cover stories contained mostly people in media or singers. Could it be that this magazine is printed with only people in media in mind? And by the way, its sister magazine Drum also features the same people.

Of interest is that a number of these people have been featured more than once e.g. Caroline Mutoku and Lilian Muli. In addition some people featured have/had their own talk shows e.g Victoria Rubadiri, Grace Msalame, Cathy Kiuna, Nancy Muthoni e.t.c. They are also newspaper & magazine columnists as well as radio & TV presenters. They have a ready availability of every media platform in the country.  Could this be our role models? Isn’t it why they are featured often so we can be like them?

I know for a fact when you read the magazine they feature other members of our society e.g. writers, lawyers, doctors, athletes e.t.c. but not as their cover personalities. That would mean that their stories are likely to be one or two pages. Perhaps ordinary people who have chosen careers in other paths outside of media do not have stories worth the limelight. Perhaps their features need to be in the middle or corner of a magazine, they don’t sell much you know. 

And lastly this year I followed the Top 40 under 40 for selfish interests (Sister-wink wink next year we are kicking ….) and for this article. In previous years those that had won the award sometimes raised eyebrows. I remember once asking a lady about her colleague who had been feted with the award. She told me she did not also know the lady until she was put on the newspaper. Considering both worked in an organization with less than 300 employees, I would imagine if one was doing such great things the other ought to have known them. That was not so. As the bible says a candle that has been lit cannot be hidden (paraphrased).Good works ought to speak for themselves especially to those near you. 

According to the Business daily “This year’s judges were meticulous, diligent and overly inquisitive as they undertook the task of picking the Top 40 women. It did not help that BD had presented them with a list of 367 candidates from which only 40 were needed. The selection process was also informed by the recent social media outrage at the discovery that a past nominee had been busted as having serious integrity issues.” And after that rigorous process they came up with Diana Okello, 32, founder, My Dress, My Choice, Janet Mbugua-Ndichu, 31, Senior TV Anchor, Citizen TV, Judith Mwangi (Avril), 29, Musician among others as part of the 40 women. What is your opinion on these 3 finalists? Interestingly the remaining 37 women are not familiar names or faces in mainstream media. You would not know who they were if you met them. Having perhaps read about them online on your own sojourns. 

The question for me becomes who exactly do we celebrate in this country? Who do we put in the limelight? Who are our role models? We continue searching in the next two articles.

Sojourner

 

http://ssojourner.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-trouble-with-masaku-7s.html

http://carolemandimedia.co.ke/true-love/

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Top-40-Women-Under-40-2015