Kenyan Woman Beats Over 1,000 Contestants to Win a BBC Competition

Kenyan woman Namulanta Kombo has been named the winner of a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) podcast competition.

Kombo, who pitched a concept of episodes based around letters to her daughter, defeated over 1,000 participants to win the contest.

The competition was open to non-broadcast/podcast professionals from various countries in Africa including Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.

“We were bowled over by the response,” Jon Manel, assistant editor of BBC World Service podcasts, said.

The BBC World Service will help Kombo turn her idea into a 15-episode podcast dubbed To My Daughter.

“Seeing myself reflected in my daughter, I worried about what would happen if I was not around to help her navigate through life or if I was there but she felt she could not talk to me,” Kombo said.

She added: “I started toying with the idea of writing her a ‘handbook to life’ that would gather anecdotes from the people around us. The BBC competition came about and I saw it as an opportunity to put my thoughts together and structure my idea.”

Production on the podcast is scheduled to begin next month and is expected to include letters from women around the world to their daughters.