by Bedah Mengo
NAIROBI, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Sometime in 2006, hunger was ravaging residents of Northern Kenya following a severe drought.
As expected, the Kenya government and relief agencies started to distribute relief food to save residents from the disaster.
However, some unscrupulous government officials and businesspersons took advantage of the situation to enrich themselves by diverting relief food and selling it to affected residents.
Jubat Adow, a journalist working for The Standard Newspaper Group in Mandera, learned of the scandal and published an investigative piece about it.
The government acted by going after the perpetrators and confiscating the maize. Adow's joy that he had saved residents from the unscrupulous people, however, was short-lived.
He was summoned by elders from the community after one of the affected businessmen complained that he had suffered losses because of the investigative story.
"I appeared before the elders and after listening to the case, they fined me 3,932 U.S. dollars to compensate the businessman for the losses he had incurred," recounted Adow in an interview with Xinhua on Thursday. "I paid 561 dollars from my savings and people from my clan raised the rest. They helped me pay to avoid a conflict."
Such is the sensitive environment in the arid Northern Kenya district the award-winning journalist operates in.
So delicate is the situation that sometimes the journalist, who won the Global Awards for Excellence launched by the World Media Summit on Monday, has to think twice before writing a story.
"It is a delicate balance because a story can spark war between two clans. Ours are closed and sensitive communities. Anyone who feels aggrieved reports to the elders who have a say on everything that happens around," Abow said.
He explained that even stories about women or child abuses can land one into problems.
"If, for instance, a teacher canes a student and you report about it and later he is interdicted, he will report to the elders and you will have to compensate him."
Culture and religion are among other hindrances Adow has to deal with. "There are so many ills that happen in our community on the pretext of religion and culture, but I cannot report them. For instance, in the case of rape, my culture bars me from talking to a woman directly lest I be fined heavily thus it becomes difficult to reach the victim."
Before he writes such a story, Adow has to go through elders, who may not allow him because they believe it would paint the community or men in bad light.
However, despite the roadblocks, Adow enjoys working in the community and serving his people.
"I have done many stories that have bettered the lives of people and the community appreciates," said Adow, who worked in the vast area as the only journalist since the year 2000, covering Mandera to Garissa before others joined him three years ago.
Some of stories that have helped the community include one on drought and another on water problem. "I wrote the story on drought and relief agencies and the government came in and distributed food. They also constructed boreholes. People were happy that they wanted to name the 224,719 dollar borehole after me but I declined."
Many times he uses his resources to travel to regions to cover stories.
"The media house rules say I claim the money that I use, which means I have to provide receipts that I cannot get in the area that has poor infrastructure. Besides, travelling to Nairobi to do that means I spend more. I decided not to claim the money," said Adow.
He also has to contend with poor mobile phone and internet network. "Sometimes it takes me up to three hours to attach a photo and sent because the internet network is poor. This means lost opportunity to break stories."
The multi-talented journalist, however, has never backed down, with his resilience propelling him to global excellence.
Adow has also worked for media outlets in Somalia and a local radio station where he hosted a popular political show dubbed Basbas (pepper), which sensitises people on democracy issues.
