Paul Musyimi on what social movements really are, why peaceful organizing wins, and how activists keep each other safe when the work gets dangerous. With Malemi, Paul talks about the principle "Seek Safety in Support Networks": when activists are threatened, national and international networks can provide support and deter violence.

Guest: Paul Musyimi, who works with social movements through Global Platforms P4C program (ActionAid). Passionate about young people strategically organizing and mobilizing for social change, and about keeping activists safe and alive to do that work.

Three takeaways

1. Social movements aren't automatically troublemakers. They use many tactics, and peaceful ones win better, longer-lasting results.
2. Safety is collective, not solo. Activists stay safer through support networks that watch over each other.
3. Good governance needs an active citizenry. Opposing power carries real risk, from surveillance to threats to detention, but staying vigilant is the price of accountability.

License of use

© Troublemakers Podcast. Free to share with full credit. Not for reuse or resale without permission.

Youth activist Nancy Siatwiko on why young Zambians are done waiting for permission to lead. Host Malemi talks with her about locked-out candidates, young women in politics, and using social media to organize.

Guest: Nancy Siatwiko, Movement Manager for Youth for Parliament and the first female student president of Cavendish University Zambia. Twice locked out of party adoption for being young and female, she now helps other young people contest.

Takeaways

1. Youth for Parliament exists because young people kept getting locked out. It pushes the youth agenda across party lines, and with youth at 53% of Zambia's voters, representation is just math.
2. If you're not given the seat, take one. The demand is inclusion at every level, based on merit, not age.
3. Young women face an extra wall of patriarchy and smears. But the shift is real, and social media now lets young people back each other across any distance.

License of use

© Troublemakers Podcast. Free to share with full credit. Not for reuse or resale without permission.

#Youth4Parliament

Ep 55: Youth, Power & Political Spaces with Tilvas Ngosa

Recorded at the Global Platform studio in Zambia, this episode asks why youth political participation across Africa stays so low, and what it takes to change that. Host Malemi talks with activist Tilvas Ngosa about systemic barriers, youth leadership, and the real cost of getting into African politics.

Guest: Tilvas Ngosa, Program Officer at ActionAid Denmark, based in Zambia. Activist and campaigner with roots in social movements.

Host: Malemi

Three takeaways

1. The barrier isn't a lack of political education, it's the field itself: expensive, often violent, and gate-kept by leaders who won't step aside.
2. Youth inclusion looks good on paper and thin in practice. Quotas exist, but representation stays low and mentorship means nothing without a real seat.
3. The moment is still worth seizing. Civil society is building a new generation, and young leaders prove it's doable. The time to claim space is now.

License of use

© Troublemakers Podcast. Free to share with full credit. Not for reuse or resale without permission.

Politicians pass laws, but culture shapes belief, and belief shapes everything else. In this episode, Thompson Luzendi sits with Sefu Sanni to unpack the battle of ideas: how culture becomes the real terrain of power, and how the creative arts can move people where speeches and laws cannot.

About the guest Sefu Sanni is a Kenyan musician, poet, and self-described communication strategist and propagandist. She leads the Pan-African Women's Network, helps coordinate the Kenya Left Alliance in Nairobi, and organizes from an openly leftist, feminist, Pan-African position.

Three lessons from the episode

1. Culture is the real battleground. Whoever shapes what feels normal, in dress, music, politics, and taste, quietly shapes what people believe is possible. Sefu names Hollywood and cultural imperialism as the force holding Africa in chains.
2. Art is not entertainment; it is strategy. From Mekatilili wa Menza using the Kifudu dance to mobilise the Mijikenda against British invasion, to today's artivism and youth uprisings from Kenya to Nepal to Nigeria, creativity has always been a tool to organise and disrupt.
3. Political education is how you win. Reclaiming African identity at the grassroots matters, but lasting change needs awakened consciousness: to unlearn, relearn, and build new knowledge, then take back the narrative from the ruling class.

Follow Troublemakers wherever you get your podcasts, and share this one with someone who needs to hear it.

License of use: © Troublemakers Podcast. Free to share with credit to Troublemakers Podcast. Not for commercial reuse or editing without permission.

What does an ideal world look like? Given Kapolyo answers without hesitation: one where inequality does not exist, and leadership is not a male sport. In this Smoke Signals, she lays out her feminist utopia, then grounds it in the everyday realities that prove the fight is far from over. It doubles as a passing of the mic, recorded as Given steps in to host the seasons ahead.

What you'll hear

• Her vision of a world where women lead from the front, unapologetically, and no one sits on the throne
• Why she refuses to define feminism for other women, or the ideal feminist man for men
• The real test of a feminist man: refusing to benefit from patriarchy, not just naming it

In her words "I dream of a world where taking up leadership is not a male sport." "When a man counts what he owns, he begins with his wives." "Nobody is going to hand it over to us. We need to fight."

About Given Kapolyo is a Zambian feminist and activist, and the incoming host of Troublemakers. A Troublemakers production, made at MS TCDC in partnership with Beautiful Trouble and MOVE. Produced by Kijiweni Productions.

What makes someone walk to the utility company with a placard instead of posting complaints online? Nalishebo Sinyama has been answering that since 2019, when a load shedding protest in her Lusaka suburb turned her into an organizer overnight. She sits with Given Kapolyo to trace her path from a grassroots ward organizer to national work, and now to feminist organizing in Somaliland. With Zambia's general election a week away, her message to young people is blunt: no one is coming to save you.

What you'll hear

• The 2019 load shedding protest that started it all, and getting arrested before she even knew what organizing was
• Finding Youth for Parliament as a safe space to be radical as a young woman
• Feminism as a hard conversation, and the question from a young girl she still cannot answer
• Being sexualized during the Patriotic Front adoption process, and naming it for what it is

In her words "The principle of organising does not change. What changes is the context." "Activism is a way of life. It is not a hobby. It is not a job." "Gender does not define how radical or how powerful someone should be." "No one is coming to help you. You have to stand up and speak out for yourself."

About the guest Nalishebo Sinyama is a grassroots organizer from Zambia, now based in Somaliland, working to put young people and young women at the front line of change.

Credits Hosted by Given Kapolyo. A Troublemakers production, made at MS TCDC in partnership with Beautiful Trouble and MOVE.

TM Smoke Signals: Silence, by Sylvie Baziga

A spoken word piece by Sylvie Baziga on the slow deaths that leave no bullet holes: the swallowed cry, the smothered dream, the word never spoken because speaking means disappearing.

Here, pencils forget. But stones remember.

This poem is a warning and a promise. The silence is not empty. It is boiling. It is preparing. And when it finally breaks, it will not ask for permission.

Written and performed by Sylvie Baziga. A Troublemakers Smoke Signals production.

Host: Thompson Luzendi (Zambia) Guest: Joe Kobuthi - philosopher, public theologian, political analyst, and curator of The Elephant Pan-African magazine.

The rules of the house were written by someone who was never supposed to stay. Thompson sits down with Joe to unpack the moral political economy — what it is, how colonialism broke it, and what Gen Z across Africa needs to understand before 2027.

What We Cover

The moral political economy explained. Economics was never meant to be separated from ethics and politics. Neoliberalism broke that and turned it into a numbers game.

Colonialism as a restructuring of the house. It did not just steal land and labour. It rewrote the rules of African political, economic, and social life entirely.

Independence that changed nothing. For most African countries, colonial structures of governance remained intact and were turned against the same people they were built to oppress.

Three drivers shaping Gen Z today. Debt, technology, and multipolarity are reshaping how young Africans see themselves, the state, and the world.

2027 and beyond. A fragmenting Kenyan elite creates opportunity. But history shows conservative forces usually capture hard transitions. Gen Z must know exactly what country it wants to build.