Sitawa Namwalie is an award winning Kenyan poet, playwright and performer known for her unique dramatized poetry performances which combine poetry and traditional Kenyan music to create performances. Her growing body of work includes “Cut off My Tongue,” performed in East Africa and at the Hay Festival 2009; “Homecoming” (2011), “Silence is a Woman”, (2014) and “Performing Nairobi: The Stories and Drama of a City”, two plays, “Black Maria on Koinange Street” and “Room of Lost Names” (2015).

Curator for photographic exhibition entitled, “Our Grandmother’s in Miniskirt” crowd sourced photographs and stories of Kenyan women from 1900 to 1980s.

2022 to 2026: Project Manager: The SHIZU African Children’s Historical Fiction Book Series proposes to produce 30 historical fiction books covering history from a range of African countries, in the next 3 years. The Storymoja SHIZU Historical Fiction Series is developing exciting fact-based historical fiction that taps into the growing need for African history written from an African perspective. Beyond entertainment, the SHIZU series will influence future generations by deepening their understanding of Africa, reconnecting African children to their roots and creating a generation of African children who are confident and certain of their place in the world.

Sitawa has worked with the United Nations and the World Bank. She holds a BSc. in Botany and Zoology from the University of Nairobi and an MA from Clark University in Massachusetts, USA. Sitawa has achieved excellence in many areas of life, including representing Kenya in tennis and hockey in her youth.