JOY DOREEN BIIRA is a news anchor with Kenyan television station KTN. She shared her life story with Simon Kasyate, the host of Capital FM’s Desert Island Discs programme.
Tell me about yourself Joy and the listeners would like to know what you are doing in Nairobi.
I am doing quite many things. I am a news anchor, a reporter at KTN and then I also do a bit of communications, advisory roles as well and a little of moderations.
You know Joy this programme is about inspiring people….
You know a lot of people see you in the media and then they think ahhh, that must have been an easy journey. But my journey is not easy.
I grew up in a family, you know those days where your father was at one point doing very well financially and then everything goes. You don’t know where all the wealth goes, it just plummets and then you have to start from scratch…My dad took us through the best schools but when he lost the money, then we…
Let us start from the beginning. Where were you born, to who and when?
I was born in 1986 on September 5. I am the fifth born of five kids. We are two girls and three brothers, although I have two step brothers who are much older than all of us. We grew up in Kasese, in Kilembe to be precise.
If you know Kilembe mining area, you can feel that mining is just inborn in me; you can wake me up and I tell you anything about copper and cobalt. I grew up in a very humble family. We didn’t have it all but we managed. I went to Namuhuga primary school and then I went to Kilembe Junior boarding school.
I am told that Kilembe was like a city then…
When I was born all that was fading out, but the little that I found when I got to the age of understanding, it was really awesome. It was like an industrial park of its own.
Everything was in there. From malls to schools. There were a lot of English teachers as well. So, we had a good education and we had access to health services.
Why would your dad take you to a boarding school?
That was the time my parents were going through a transition financially and the best way to deal with it was to put us in a boarding school so that we are not interrupted because they had to move from one house to another…it was really tough time!
What kind of dad and mom did you have?
I don’t think they spared the rod. There was not much to really spoil us with.
Simply not beating an African child is bad enough!
We were beaten! Seriously beaten! If there is a child my mom beat up most, it must have been me, despite the fact that I was the last born. So, there was a lot of discipline in there but also a lot of freedom. My parents were very understanding. With the little they had, they made the most out of it and invested it carefully, mostly in our education.
Did you ever do domestic chores?
My dad was actually a very good cook. So, it was from that basis that there were no roles for boys and girls…when I left boarding school, I had to go and live with my dad for my P7 in Kasese town.
Around that time he was living alone because my mom was in Kilembe. So, we had to switch roles. Sometimes he would get out of his way and make me matooke chips or cassava chips. He would cook fish. I actually respect him like no other person in this world.
Are you one of those people that don’t believe in male chauvinism?
Yes. I don’t believe in specific roles for specific genders. That means that in everything you think about, you have a divided mind. So, for me, that doesn’t work.
Plays God Will Make A Way by Don Moen
Joy, you went to three schools in your primary!
Yeah. I moved from Kilembe Junior because around that time the Allied Democratic Forces had made that part of the country very insecure. I remember in my P6, we used to count bullets flying from one end to another and we would be like one, two, three and we would count all the way 22, 35, you know.
And we used to enjoy it! Enjoy it in a way that when you would start hearing the gunshots now, it would get scary. It was a traumatizing experience because you know that when you wake up, there are all these cars moving around, there are tanks moving about….so, when we took our holidays in December, my dad again had to scale down financially and my mom.
Boarding had become expensive. One of the reasons I moved was the fact that that place had become insecure. I moved to a day school but it looked like the bullets had followed me to a town school. It got so worse when guys had to leave the Democratic Republic of Congo and come to Uganda.
So, our school for about three days was turned into a refugee camp. There was that too. It was so bad. But on the school side, it was so good. I remember the extracurricular skills that I gained there such as singing.
At what time did you think that journalism was the way to go?
I wanted to be a soldier because I used to see these soldiers with bullets tied around them and then the guns. There were all kinds of guns there. Then there were the tanks as well. I was like if I could be a soldier, I would probably bring peace to this part of the country.
But when I grew up, I started changing; I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be all kinds of things. Then I wanted to be a journalist. I used to listen to a lot of BBC courtesy of my parents as well.
Which secondary school did you go to?
I went to Kyebambe Girls School in Fort Portal because my sister had just completed her form six; so, she thought let’s take Joy over there, they are more tolerant, you know school fees and things like that. We shared a good relationship with the headmistress then, unfortunately she passed on.
So, I joined Kyebambe in S1. In S2, it became a challenge again because of school fees. So, I was in and out. But my grades for S1 were really good and that is when the headmistress thought ‘why don’t we just get her a scholarship?’ So, she was that good! She got be a scholarship from Fawe (Forum for African Women Educationalists), the Uganda chapter.
Plays Lush Life by Zara Larsson
Joy, you may have been in a single school but you certainly must have got a few boys writing to you letters…
That is normal. You know when you are a teenager, hormones are all over the place. That is not to say I didn’t get these love letters from St Leo’s College Kyegobe and all these other schools.
But there was this career guidance we used to get and we were always told wait until you are 18 and then you can think about getting a boyfriend. So, for me and then of course my brothers, they were always defending me.
Plays Omukwano by Maddox Ssematimba
Did you do you A-level at Kyebambe as well?
No, I did my A-level in Immaculate Heart in Rukungiri.
You went there to study what?
I went there to study HEG/Art.
In other words, you had found your mojo?
Actually when I was completing form four, I had wanted to be a lawyer. It had started coming through, but then again with the subjects that I was given, I was starting to doubt it because I used to think if I could tell all these stories in a way…and teachers were telling me that I was good at English comprehension. I started thinking maybe journalism could be the thing for me.
Are you catholic?
No.
How were you able to fit in at this new school with a catholic setting?
I think I easily get acclimatized to new environments. So, it took two weeks for me to adjust and later I was like this is where I am going to be for the next two years, I either deal with it or….So, we used to go to church on Thursdays and Sundays.
And after the two years?
Makerere University.
Had you been to Kampala before?
Yes. We used to come a lot. We have relatives in Kampala. We used to come during holidays. That in a way exposed us. Even at A-level, I used to come to Makerere College during holidays for day coaching.
So, you get to Makerere, coming from a home where you were protected…
Actually my brothers were not protective to the extent that they would not let you be. So, when I came to Makerere, nothing big changed. When I was in high school, we never were allowed to wear trousers. So now I knew I could wear trousers all the way
Do you love trousers as opposed to dresses and skirts?
It was 50/50. If it was a skirt, usually it had to be way below your knees. That, in a way, was a bit uncomfortable. It is good to be decent but don’t make it go all the way to my feet.
Today, what is your taste, trousers or skirts?
Everything. But my preference is dresses mostly, slightly below the knee.
What kind of print?
I like them plain. Solid colours work very well for my kind of job. Usually when you wear the colours, they tend to react…
If I get you right, your job determines a lot about how you conduct yourself…
Yes.
Even what you eat?
Absolutely not. I eat. Actually I don’t know where the food goes.
What course did you do at Makerere?
Bachelor of information technology. It was my third choice after Mass Communication and Industrial Art. When I saw it in the newspaper, I was like really! I didn’t know much about computers.
The only thing I knew was my email address. I started thinking that maybe when I get there I could switch courses, I could do Industrial Art or I could get into Mass Communication….when I went to campus, my sister was working and my brother was working.
They put their monies together and they took me through university. I had also made some good friends, African-American. So, along the way, they chipped in and helped me out… In second year, I get into TV.
How did you do that?
I told you I had asked for Mass Communication but my passion had grown so much. I used to listen to Capital FM, I used to watch a lot of BBC and listen to it. There was this encouragement.
My parents used to buy newspapers. My dad always carried a book by the way. My mom was so committed to ensure that we got as much information as we could because she believed that not everything was taught in a classroom…so, when I was at campus, I used to sneak into Mass Communication lectures.
How then did you venture into TV?
I used to go to the campus radio. There was Mr Luyimbaazi, he was the manager of the radio and a lecturer as well. He used to see me regularly. Then he realized that he knew my sister who was working with Radio Simba as well.
It was from there that we started having that kind of career guidance. He started saying you know you can do both things. He kept grooming me. I started doing those crazy radio shows on campus. One day a classmate at IT told me ‘hei Joy there is this TV station doing auditions’.
I said no, I don’t think TV is my thing. He said no, let us just go. We will see when we get there. We went and I said I will stay here. You go up there do yours. He wanted to do sports actually. I waited for him. Somebody found me in the hallway and said why don’t you go up there?
Which TV station?
NBS. So, I went there and I said my names. They asked me what do you think is lacking on TV. I said honestly I am an evening student, I don’t get to watch TV and the best way I can watch TV is in the morning. I was doing something then.
I was hustling; I was a merchandiser. Moving around supermarkets checking if expiry dates, you know, if the products on the shelves are still valid. I was doing that on a short-term basis.
For who?
There was a company called Branding Uganda Limited. Then I would get idle after that. So when I went and they asked me what do you want to see on TV, I was like I would like to see the news at 9 in the morning. They said how would you want it to go? I said because me I don’t read newspapers, I don’t watch news because I am in class, so I would really like to see something in the morning so I can know what is going on in the country.
They said how would you want this to go? I said also knowing what people on the streets are saying about the current news would be good. But I didn’t know what I was saying journalistically. That is how I got into TV. Long story short, I was asked to take my CV and was given a template to fill in the morning show details.
They guided us through it, then they trained us for two, three weeks I think and later I was told Shaun [Kimuli] is going to be your co-host. Then I got so scared. I had heard about him and he was then working with Pearl FM. He was really incredible. He was so professional. I was so worried and didn’t think I was going to do this. My first day on TV was one of the most traumatizing days of my life.
What freaked you out?
The show started at 6am. Paper review: I didn’t have the words to say. Shaun helped in sustaining the conversation. I remember flipping the paper upside down and I thought someone is going to write something about this episode in the papers and, indeed, they did. They did it after about two weeks. Guess who it was? Moses Serugo!
The feedback was that I was so raw, actually before I got on TV, I remember my boss was Chris Wanobere. He said you know you need a lot of work, but you must read. If there is one thing that is going to get you to where you want to be, it is reading.
Nathan Nabeeta, the majority shareholder at NBS then, always gave me newspapers and told me you must read because I don’t want you to say things that you have no idea about. Then there was that article by Serugo. I read each and every word and those words haunted me because they challenged me to make sure I did the right thing, read the right stuff and get the right knowledge. So, I was always around journalists.
Joy, is it right that if taken positively, brutal honesty is good for the likes of people in broadcast journalism or anywhere?
Absolutely. I take criticism very seriously. You might say that is not who I am. But somebody is watching from the outside.
But there are people who come and pour water on a hard-earned achievement…when it is actually plain hate.
Yes, you can say that but how do you take hate? How do you react to hate? I think that in every criticism there is a point somewhere. Try to look in the mirror and ask yourself: Are you giving 100% to everything you are doing? I think around that time I was not giving 100% because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it or it was going to work.
When did you realize that journalism was it?
I think the people around me helped me. Shaun, Nathan Nabeeta, Kin Karisa and the myriad of journalists I met at those drink-ups. If there is something people know me for, it is asking a lot of questions.
I knew that I didn’t have a journalistic background. But if I needed to get it, I needed to ask questions, no matter how stupid they were.
Just when we were getting used to you, you went for greener pastures!
It is an opportunity that came to me. I had worked for four years at NBS and I felt like I needed a challenge. They had made me who I was, now I needed to spread my wings a little bit.
How has it been in Kenya?
When I went on TV for the first time, I was so tense. I think I skipped some words, even my name. But then when you have humility and you are humble enough; that is what attracts people to you most.
If you are not humble, just fake it. Don’t be too humble to be taken advantage of, but be humble that when you don’t know something, you seek help. That has helped me grow.
Do we see a Joy Doreen Biira on a ballot paper?
I cannot actually say no. you might see me on a ballot paper soon. May be in 2021. But I don’t have political ambitions. I have ambitions to change lives of people, but not politically….Shs 10,000 to someone makes a difference if it is going into their education, health or things like that. I would like to play that role.
If you were marooned on a desert island and were allowed to go with one thing or one individual. Who or what would you go with?
Scarf.
Why?
A scarf can be turned into a cloth, a blanket, all sorts of things. You don’t need Wi-Fi on an island.
Plays Get Back Up by Chris Brown and TI
TRANSCRIPT: JOSEPH KIMBOWA.
