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EXCLUSIVE: Fridah Mwaka opens up on role models, passion for Swahili


NTV’s Swahili prime-time news anchor Fridah Mwaka has opened up about her passion for Kiswahili.

This comes after she won the Outstanding Female News Anchor of the Year award during the International Ladies in Media Award 2022. The event was held in Ghana in 2022.

The soft-spoken Swahili guru shared that her passion for the language started when she was a little girl.

The young Fridah loved watching television shows in the Swahili language.

In an exclusive interview with Nairobi News, Fridah notes that former State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena was one of her role models.

“Kiswahili would flow easily in me and even in school, I excelled in it. When I finished my high school education, I started acting in the Swahili set books. The likes of Utengano,” she says.

Further, Fridah notes that her passion for the language was propelled by where she was brought up up.

“In all my childhood days, my parents and I lived in Kilifi county. So the environment was an enabling factor.”

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Joining Daystar University for her campus education, Fridah notes an opportunity to join radio popped up.

“I met Caroline Bii, now a journalist with BBC, who told me that if I was joining radio to speak in English then she would not give me the opportunity. You do speak nice Swahili, you are a Coast resident so fight for the spot in the language,” she reveals.

Not knowing what frequency is called in Swahili, Fridah took the bulls by the horns and aced her interview so much that her interviewers were amazed. Stunned. Taken aback.

In one of the radio competitions, Fridah and her co-host Hassan Omar emerged as the winners and that is when she realised that her space in media was in Swahili.

“The win was an affirmation that for me, Kiswahili was the way to go,” she explains.

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