Zachary Ochieng
Journalist, Editor, Actor
Zachary Ochieng is a widely-travelled writer, editor, actor and theater critic in Nairobi. He is the managing editor of The Big Issue Kenya, a monthly magazine for social justice and poverty alleviation and of NewsfromAfrica, a pan-African daily online publication. The two are sister publications run by Koinonia Community, a lay Christian organization. He is also the acting editor of the Highway Africa News Agency, the South African-based pan-African niche online publication focusing on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in Africa. He also corresponds for a number of international publications including The African Courier, published in Speyer, Germany, NewsAfrica in London, Internazionale and Redattore Sociale both in Rome, Italy. He is also a special correspondent for The EastAfrican, a regional weekly newspaper published in Nairobi Kenya by the Nation Media Group, the leading media house in East and Central Africa.

A former manager of an AIDS NGO, Mr. Ochieng, who graduated from the University of Bombay in India with a bachelor’s degree in economics, followed by practical media-related training both locally and overseas, has reported from Asia, Europe and around Africa. He has delivered lectures on conflict in Africa at universities in Italy. As an actor, he has played lead roles in Nairobi in Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, John Ruanda’s Black Mamba and Olu Olagoke’s The Incorruptible Judge. Mr. Ochieng is the winner of five international journalism awards, including the international award for excellence in journalism sponsored by the Geneva-based International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP) and the Siemens Profile awards for Science and technology reporting.