Edwin's Corner

  The first Men's Group Mtaani session A recap of the first Men’s Group Mtaani session There are places where we usually gather as men. Nice hotels. Clean spaces. Tasteful décor. Order. A certain dignity to the environment. The kind of places where even your problems behave themself for two hours. You arrive, sit well, speak well, take tea, nod thoughtfully, and leave feeling like life has a sense of order. Then, some places don't care about your structure—places that give you reality straight up, without any fluff. That Saturday, I transitioned from one world to another. I had just finished serving as Toastmaster of the Day at Magnetic Toastmasters Club. That alone already requires sharpness of mind, presence, timing, and social energy. Then I left there and headed toward Langata for our first-ever Men’s Group Mtaani meeting. If I am honest, I didn't fully know how it would go. I had hope, yes. Vision, yes. But certainty? Not even a little. The weather itself seem...

  Bobby Gadhia & George Ikua A reflection on success, masculinity, and the quiet inner battles behind achievement. Introduction: The Inevitability of Struggle There are conversations we naturally steer clear of. Not because they are controversial, but because they demand honesty about something uncomfortable: suffering. Life has a strange way of bringing trouble without warning. It rarely waits until we feel ready. Problems show up when careers are just starting to take off, when relationships seem secure, or when everything looks like it's going in the right direction. And when they do come, they rarely ask for permission. If we take the time to notice the pattern, a difficult truth becomes clear: struggle is not an exception to life; it is part of its structure. The Bible illustrates this clearly: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:17. The verse does not condemn work itself; r...

  The Restaurant in Nairobi: When Rejection Becomes Personal Michael was waiting anxiously in a restaurant in Nairobi. He had arrived early. Hopeful men often get there early. It gives them time to rehearse what they might say, to check their phone repeatedly, and occasionally to look around pretending they are not looking for someone. For the past month, Michael had been talking to Jolly almost every night. After work, he always called her. And something strange would happen whenever they talked. He would find himself smiling without realizing it. His coworkers noticed it once when he was leaving the office. “You look suspiciously happy,” one of them had joked. Michael laughed it off, but privately, he knew something had shifted. He had started calling her his dream girl. She would laugh shyly— the kind of laugh that leaves a man wondering if he’s being indulged or encouraged. He had looked at her picture so many times that he knew every angle of her face. She was breathta...

  Teresa Njoroge & Renee Ngamau at Founders Battlefield Arena Live Event  Reflections from a Rainy Night at The Arena Live  Founders' Battlefield Letting go is one of the most difficult things a human being can do. Not because we lack courage. But because the very things we must release are often the things that give us identity. They become the stories we tell about who we are, the achievements that give us status, the relationships that give us belonging, and the ambitions that keep our days moving and our evenings worth collapsing into. We build our lives around them. We prop them up carefully, fiercely, sometimes desperately. The more successful we appear in the eyes of the world, the stronger the urge becomes to maintain that structure. Yet there is a quiet moment that many people try desperately to avoid. It happens when the noise fades, the distractions disappear, and we are left alone with ourselves. In that moment, a difficult question appears. Am I t...