During the mourning of Kenyan television star Catherine Kasavuli, who died at 60 of cancer, she was honoured and eulogised by the country’s Who’s Who, revealing the need for exemplary performance.
Among other praisee, she was honoured as a mentor par excellence, something that should ring a bell to every professional, many of them icons and expert hands.
Kenya is not short on top professionals across fields, but it is in the broadcast media where journalists can be ‘more important than a bank president,’ one author has written in a book.
Former colleagues mourned the Kenyan TV queen as the mentor who nurtured talent, helping novices to scale slippery walls in the often chaotic newsrooms.
When she was being laid to rest at Zululu in Vihiga County, Topi Lyambila, a journalist, remembered how Kasavuli identified him from his voice. Some broadcasters owe it to their pronunciation prowess.
“You have a broadcast voice,” Kasavali told him in the company of Rose Musumba at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) after he read a script when he bumped into the duo at a news studio.
After reading the lines, Lyambila told mourners Kasavuli wanted to know what he did at KBC and revealed he was in supply section. That is how and when his career journey took a turn and he became a journalist, rising to become an international broadcaster.
“Were it not for Catherine, I would not have been the broadcaster you are seeing here today,” he told mourners at Nyang’ori High School on Jan 14, 2023 during the burial.
Jeff Koinange, a former CNN broadcaster, is also known to have entered journalism through his deep voice and reading power when he worked as a flight attendant and his announcements got passengers talking and excited. He enrolled in a journalism school and the rest is history.
Farida Karoney, who was Kasavuli’s boss at Citizen TV, said because of ‘the girl from Zululu’, “many women dared to dream”.
Julie Gichuru, who also worked with Kasav, as she was known among colleagues, remembered the departed as “the epitome of professionalism” and “an icon for many of us”.
Kathleen Openda, one of the well-known TV interviewers in Kenya, said Kasavuli was “also very keen to mentor the next generation of female journalists”.
Although Isaya Kabira, a former editor at KTN who rose become the head of presidential press service, was right to say there would be none like Catherine, Kasavuli’s star will keep shining many years after she is gone because of mentorship.
Hussein Mohammed, the Statehouse spokesperson, said the departed “made it easy” for him to grow his way up as upcoming reporter-cum-anchor.
BBC’s Ferdinand Omondi said Kasavuli was “a calm teacher and respectful mentor”.
Mentorship means taking the risk in someone’s ability to do a good job even to the extent of towering above the mentor.
