Do you know how rare it is to find a media practitioner who looks at a dense law book and sees a story waiting to save someone’s life? Well, maybe Maria didn’t study law to spend her life behind a courtroom desk. The universe led her into spaces where people are fighting for their dignity. And now, here she is: the first-ever winner of the inaugural Patsy Robertson Award at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards.

The Patsy Robertson Award (The Award for Outstanding Communications Skills in Advancing Community Development and Peace) is a special accolade presented as part of the annual Commonwealth Youth Awards. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Association, a group composed of former Commonwealth Secretariat staff members, the award recognises young media professionals who use communication to promote media freedom, inclusive societies, democracy and peace. It honours the late Patsy Robertson, a trailblazing Jamaican journalist and diplomat who served as Director of Information and official spokesperson at the Commonwealth Secretariat from 1983 to 1994. Robertson became widely recognised as the voice of the modern Commonwealth, using communication as a tool in the fight against apartheid and racial injustice in Southern Africa.

When Maria’s name was announced, she had only recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Media and Development from the University of Westminster in the UK as a prestigious Chevening Scholar. “I’ve always been very critical of myself. Although every time I meet people, they tell me they really love my work,” she says. Winning the award made her reflect on what more she could do with her work. She was the first person to receive the award since the category was introduced. Her journey to that moment, however, did not begin in media. It began with law.

The law was only the beginning

The transition from law to media was always somewhere in the background for Maria. Perhaps she simply didn’t have the courage to follow it then. As a law student at Strathmore Law School, she initially imagined a conventional career. Like many students who enter law school, she thought she would pursue justice through the traditional legal route.

By her graduation in 2019, however, she had begun thinking seriously about gender and international law. Her experiences, including a judicial attachment and later work in advocacy, exposed her to questions that could not simply be answered by reading statutes or appearing in court. She became interested in gender roles, social norms and the ways younger generations were challenging ideas that older generations had long accepted. This curiosity eventually became part of her niche. “Laws regulate the media. The media shapes public conversations and perceptions, which can either affirm, challenge or compound various social and gender norms that exist in society. And both can influence development,” she says.

“Even the definition of media itself keeps changing. Traditional media and new media now exist alongside each other, while the rules governing them struggle to keep pace with the speed at which digital platforms evolve.” She recalls engaging with Meta during her master’s programme and seeing just how difficult it can be to regulate a space where new forms of communication, slang, trends and content emerge almost every day. “Take the growing wave of masculinity content online, for example. How do you regulate something that is constantly evolving?”

“The simpler and more relatable it is, the more impact it creates”

“I’ve learnt that the simpler it is and the more relatable it is, the more impact it creates,” she says. Policy can be filled with complicated language, technical concepts and big ideas that make perfect sense to the people who write them but very little sense to those affected by them. Maria learnt to break down those ideas and explain what they mean in everyday life. “The responses I received, and requests for features on Al Jazeera and the Guardian UK, only reminded me that audiences do not necessarily need more complicated information. Sometimes, they simply need someone to explain what it means for them.”

Policy can begin as an abstract idea. Someone identifies a problem, develops a policy to address it, and moves on. But somewhere in that process is a person who has to live with the consequences. That person has become central to how Maria approaches communication.

A lesson from Kakuma

Maria travelled to Kakuma, Turkana County, Kenya, as a consultant. The experience introduced her to young people whose ambitions extended far beyond the circumstances around them. She met girls who were already thinking about their futures. “I want to become a lawyer,” some would tell her. Maria understood how difficult it could be for someone growing up in a refugee camp to imagine and pursue a career that may seem far removed from their immediate surroundings. But regardless, the girls were imagining those possibilities. She also noticed how gender roles could shape everyday life in the community, while at the same time, these young people were questioning some of those expectations. “I met boys who were curious about helping their sisters escape early marriage and FGM. I saw young people beginning to understand that girls could perform just as well in school, that girls had the same value and that some customs placed heavier burdens on girls.” That was when Maria affirmed her belief that change begins when people are given the opportunity to see things differently.

That belief became part of the foundation for Maria’s platform, Social Justice Insights Kenya. The platform produces research-based advocacy and storytelling content that focuses on narrative change and strategic communication to advance gender justice, challenge harmful social norms, and address gender-based violence and femicide in Kenya. Building Social Justice Insights Kenya has not been easy. Maria still carries much of the work herself. “Even with several offers from future volunteers, I want to build something that can genuinely support them rather than simply having people volunteer without the resources or structure they need,” she says.

Communicating emotionally charged issues without losing balance is another challenge. Maria takes time to prepare before discussing some of the issues she covers because she understands that audiences engage differently when sensitive subjects are presented carefully and thoughtfully. She hopes to eventually run Social Justice Insights Kenya full-time, build a non-profit around the work and take the platform to a much larger scale. The constant stream of messages and comments from men and women indicates that research-based digital advocacy can influence norm and behaviour change. One day, she would also like to give a public lecture on the subject.

There is no single path

“Get exposed,” Maria advises law students. “Look beyond traditional law.” “Talk to people who have taken unconventional career paths. Ask them how they transitioned and why they made the decisions they did.” Maria believes that people are often more willing to share their journeys than we imagine. You ask someone how they got from point A to point B, and somewhere in that conversation, you may discover an opportunity, a connection or even a possible direction for your own life. “You may not find your path immediately,” she says, “but you begin to see what is possible.”

What would Maria tell her Strathmore Law School self if she met her today? “Do more internships, and if you cannot find one, create your own,” she adds with a smile. “Sometimes, waiting for someone to give you an opportunity is the longest route to discovering what you are capable of.” If Maria continues along this trajectory, from law to media, from journalism to advocacy and, should she ever decide to pick up a microphone, perhaps we would have to call her the modern-day Miriam Makeba.

Because that is what she is: a woman with a voice, a message and the courage to use both.

Article by Evans Ijakaa