KPC Foundation and eKitabu Forge a New Blueprint to Rescue Kenya’s Isolated Creatives.

 Rachel Gathoni, the Kenya Pipeline Company Managing Trustee and Foundation Manager

Ngecha, Kiambu, Kenya, by George Mutua.

 In the shadow of a bustling Nairobi that often races past its art, a quiet but determined revolution is taking root. At the Mlango Farm artistic community in Ngecha, a serene landscape of sustainable agriculture and deep creative history, the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Foundation has launched the Sanaa initiative. This is not merely another corporate social responsibility event. Instead, it is a deliberate, structured attempt to diagnose and treat the chronic isolation and market fragmentation that have long plagued Kenya's writers, visual artists, and musicians. For one day, over fifty creatives, ranging from Gen Z digital poets to veteran painters who have been wielding brushes for forty years, sat elbow-to-elbow with corporate leaders. Their mission was brutally simple yet historically elusive:  to stop creating alone and start accessing the markets and platforms that have always felt just out of reach.

The diagnosis emerging from these conversations was stark. Rachel Gathoni, the Kenya Pipeline Company Managing Trustee and Foundation Manager, who oversaw the dialogue, described a sector suffering from a profound lack of cohesion. "In the creative space, since you kind of create alone, there is isolation and fragmentation," she explained. "Everyone is doing their thing and trying to access their market their way. Access to markets is a challenge. Platforms are a challenge. The financing for them to access these big platforms is also a challenge." Perhaps the most troubling revelation, she noted, was a deep-seated cultural preference for foreign goods over local genius, a trend that threatens to strangle the industry before it can fully mature. "They say that most people would rather buy an imported toy than buy a local piece of artwork created by a Kenyan, or a foreign painting done by AI rather than something created by local talent," Gathoni said. "That caught my eye. We need to push so that even as Kenyans, we can be the first consumers of our art, our books, so that we can keep this sector alive."

Central to this push is a powerful new partnership between the KPC Foundation and eKitabu, a forward-thinking publisher that operates under the Mvua Press imprint. eKitabu has spent the last two years exclusively championing Kenyan adult literature, building a roster that includes the bestselling author Empress Shiko, Kimani Moniki, the poet Scholastica Marat, and the venerable David Maelou, an 86-year-old literary titan whose career spans decades. Speaking at the event, eKitabu's CEO, Will Clurman, made it clear that his organization is not interested in cosmetic gestures. He wants to rewrite the structural rules of the game. "We don't want to do things that are just cosmetic," Clurman asserted. "We want to do things that try to address the structural challenges that artists face. As a publisher, we work with those challenges every day. We know that the artist has an especially lonely challenge sometimes."

Clurman articulated a philosophy centered on three unshakeable goals: author success, getting quality books to market, and making sales, which he redefines simply as "finding readers and getting the books into their hands." While eKitabu was born as a digital-native company, producing audiobooks and even a popular children's television program on the Akili Network (Digital Storytime), Clurman acknowledged that true accessibility still lies in the printed word. "If we focus on digital only, then we miss most of the readers that are out there," he admitted. "We honour the printed word. A printed book can go into a child's hand, can go into an adult's hand. It's on us to make the books affordable."  "The only path worth taking is a path with heart," Clurman said. "Heart takes work. It takes time. It takes commitment. Look at David Maelou, who has worked from his childhood to now at 86 years old. His works show that he is about the work. I wish I had easier answers, but for us, it's mainly about the work."

 eKitabu CEO, Will Clurman (pictured).

The threat of generative AI, including tools like ChatGPT, loomed over the discussions as a potential disruptor. However, Rachel Gathoni offered a measured yet cautious perspective, arguing that technology cannot replicate the intrinsic human desire for authentic connection. "Technology will not replace what we love from humans, because sometimes you want something because it is a human who has made it," she said. Yet she acknowledged the grave risks: the ease with which artworks can be copied, altered, or generated from scratch, potentially sidelining skilled artists. "It is a big risk because of the way artworks can be copied or altered. It is an area that still needs a lot of reflection, a lot of policies, and awareness for artists regarding their rights and copyright laws." 

The Sanaa initiative is translating this dialogue into concrete, actionable strategies. The KPC Foundation has committed to a series of specific interventions designed to pry open new markets for artists. First, in all KPC sponsorships and corporate calls, the organisation will provide dedicated physical areas for artists and writers to showcase and sell their work, effectively turning corporate events into marketplaces. Second, KPC will open its workspaces for "open days," allowing staff to directly interact with artists and creators, fostering a culture of internal consumption. Third, the Foundation will actively become a consumer of local art, integrating Kenyan paintings, books, and performances into its offices, private events, and corporate sponsorships. Gathoni emphasized that art itself is the employer; their role is simply to amplify. "For us, we want to be at that point where we are assisting the creatives to be out there, because in that way, each artist will be able to sell their content, support themselves, and support their family."

This entire movement is being incubated on sacred ground. The Mlango Farm, which hosted the event, is itself a story of reinvention and community. Its owner, Els Wakamade, who moved from the Netherlands to Kenya 18 years ago with her late husband, a commander from the local area, transformed a bush into a thriving educational organic farm that now employs 80 people from the Ngecha community. "The commander, my late husband, he knew this community," Wakamade said. "And this community is a community of artists." That ancestral connection to art, combined with corporate will and publishing expertise, has created a unique laboratory for change. Rachel Gathoni assured the artist that they are going to lead the change, "This is more of the start," she concluded. "Mobilizing people and creating awareness takes time. This is a sector we want to be in for quite some time. We do not yet have an end, because we believe in coming together around problems, falling in love with the problems themselves, so we can find strategies that will make change." For the lonely artist, the isolated writer, and the overlooked painter, that long-term commitment from leaders like Gathoni and Clurman may finally be the platform they have been waiting for.