Mariama Kamara, Founder and Director & Beam Talks
Beam Talks, Smiling Through Light showcases the diverse career routes taken by Sierra Leonean women living in the UK, and provides a space where role models can discuss their achievements, experiences and challenges with a new generation of change-makers. On 29 June 2017, Mariama Kamara, hosted the fifth edition of the series.Mariama Kamara is the Founder & Director of Smiling Through Light; company working to provide clean, reliable & sustainable energy in Sierra Leone. Beam Talks is the company’s UK initiative. She started the company in May 2013, after a trip to Sierra Leone in 2011 on a placement with Restless Development as a SRH Curriculum Development Technical Assistant. Prior to that, she worked on different HIV, advocacy and campaigning projects at local, national and international level with organisations such as SciDev.Net, African Health Policy Network, VSO, African Development Association for Progress, Restless Development and Africa UK in contributing towards the development of Africa. She has always been interested in development issues especially on poverty, energy, education, sexual and reproductive health and HIV issues relating to women and young people. Mariama has a MSc in Development Studies from Birkbeck College and BSc (Hons) in Psychology.
Panellists Siana Bangura, Lyande Kaikai and Muriel Lamin; with the host, Naberay Bangura
Naberay Bangura is an MBA Masters Degree holder in Human Resource Management, an excellent communicator, a mentor, a friend & TV presenter first working for Klear TV on Sky television and now on the Wan Pot Show on Ben TV on Sky. She has always had a passion for media & the arts, coming second runner up in Miss Sierra Leone UK 2004 under ACE Promotion. Naberay’s knowledge in the business sector has enabled her to work in a variety of fields, from Marketing, Business Development, Events Management & Recruitment. This has strengthen her skill set, by enabling her to enter into the world of entrepreneurship by starting up two businesses one in Sierra Leone & another in the United Kingdom.
Siana Bangura is a writer, poet, performer and freelance journalist hailing from South East London via Freetown, Sierra Leone. She’s the founder of and publisher at Haus of Liberated Reading, an independent publishing house and is the editor of Black British Feminist platform No Fly on the WALL. Siana is the producer of ‘1500 & Counting’, a film exploring police brutality and deaths in custody in the UK. She is also the author of ‘Elephant’, her debut collection of poetry meditating on Black British womanhood. She has written for VICE, Consented, Black Ballad, and has worked with Channel 4, BBC and Sky to name just a few.
Lyande Kaikai is a Sierra Leonean entrepreneur, founder and producer of My African Passport (MAP) and The Africa Show respectively. MAP; a travel and tourism company was founded in 2012 after Lyande met with the President of Sierra Leone. She started travelling the continent to learn about its people, cultures and landscapes. Lyande has travelled to and worked with over 15 African countries to date. Her travel blog, photos and videos showcase the beauty of African countries. She has worked with tourism ministries, travel bloggers and brands like Airbnb, KLM and World Travel Market. Lyande is known as an African travel expert and has shared her knowledge on many media platforms. For example, she has been seen on Arise News, BBC News and London Live talking about travel and tourism. In 2015, Lyande achieved one of her biggest goals, which was to work in Sierra Leone. Although under difficult circumstances, she supported her country through the Ebola crisis. Lyande worked as a reporting analyst at the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), writing weekly reports for the President. Since the Ebola, she has been working vigorously to improve tourism to Sierra Leone via her blog, social media and magazine articles. Lyande wanted to promote Africa even more so she went on to produce and co-host ‘The Africa Show’ in 2016. The show is about promoting Africa, African people and African music. The show is on every Saturday at 4pm GMT on Colourful Radio. The presenters cover a range of topics from travel, food, fashion, film, sports and art.
Lyande Kaikai is a Sierra Leonean entrepreneur, founder and producer of My African Passport (MAP) and The Africa Show respectively. MAP; a travel and tourism company was founded in 2012 after Lyande met with the President of Sierra Leone. She started travelling the continent to learn about its people, cultures and landscapes. Lyande has travelled to and worked with over 15 African countries to date. Her travel blog, photos and videos showcase the beauty of African countries. She has worked with tourism ministries, travel bloggers and brands like Airbnb, KLM and World Travel Market. Lyande is known as an African travel expert and has shared her knowledge on many media platforms. For example, she has been seen on Arise News, BBC News and London Live talking about travel and tourism. In 2015, Lyande achieved one of her biggest goals, which was to work in Sierra Leone. Although under difficult circumstances, she supported her country through the Ebola crisis. Lyande worked as a reporting analyst at the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), writing weekly reports for the President. Since the Ebola, she has been working vigorously to improve tourism to Sierra Leone via her blog, social media and magazine articles. Lyande wanted to promote Africa even more so she went on to produce and co-host ‘The Africa Show’ in 2016. The show is about promoting Africa, African people and African music. The show is on every Saturday at 4pm GMT on Colourful Radio. The presenters cover a range of topics from travel, food, fashion, film, sports and art.
Musu Kaikai